


Inside-Out

by LadyLazarus



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Demon!Stiles, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Torture, dubcon, noncon?, sterek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-27 06:40:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLazarus/pseuds/LadyLazarus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles only wanted to protect them, everyone, to make sure they were safe.</p><p>But making deals with demons never goes right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Running. Heavy breathing. Snapping twigs and crunching leaves. Stiles ran as fast as he could, tearing through the trees and dodging wayward branches. Fear clutched him tightly and he knew the scent was leaving a trail as much as he tried to create a haphazard path away from the alphas. His chest was beginning to tighten up and the panic was edging in, ready to seize him should he take a precious moment to consider himself. Stiles wasn’t supposed to be in danger on this one. Derek said, oddly, that he had had enough of Stiles being the bait.

That damn werewolf was probably just angry he had to keep jumping in to save Stiles. It’s not as if he hadn’t saved Derek once or twice himself. Sometimes Derek could be really selfish despite his pretense for ‘saving’ Erica, Isaac and Boyd. Where were Erica and Boyd now that the alphas left them to rot in the woods, missing limbs and heads?

Three footfalls too close. Stiles was hoping and praying that he could get to his jeep before they captured him. Or killed him. Or that maybe Scott would intervene or Derek would have to get over himself and come save him. When did Stiles become the damsel?

A howl rent the air above him and with a huff of relief as he scurried over a rotten log, Stiles ran faster, but with less of a desperate air. In his sight: the jeep, salvation. His heart beat faster with elation and he reached the door, only to spot glowing red eyes in the reflection of the window. Ducking, Stiles avoided the fist that broke his window. With no room to wriggle away, Stiles was pressed, crouched, against the door of his Jeep as the largest of the Alphas kneed him in the side of his head, which slammed into the door.

Darkness. Then bright spots and he was back. In the interim, Scott had reached the Alpha and they were lunging at each other before Derek came from nowhere and pulled out the Alpha’s still-beating heart. Scott decapitated him without hesitation. The moon was full, tempers high, and animal instinct potent.

Darkness again, albeit with blood dripping into lashes.

\---

“Stop trying to save the day.”

“Stop needing me to.” He hadn’t even opened his eyes yet and already Derek was growling at him. Stiles was surprised enough that Derek was in the hospital with him instead of Scott. Unless Scott was being quiet, but that would be too weird for him. Where was his dad?

“Your dad is getting coffee. He’s about to come back, so I’m leaving. Don’t tell him I was here. And don’t do anything stupid.”

“I hate you.” Maybe he imagined it, but Derek’s huff might have sounded more amused than annoyed this time.

At least there was one less shitty Alpha around Beacon Hills. Stiles could sleep a little more soundly knowing there was only the female and the twins left to deal with. Maybe without their leader they would leave? Maybe they would submit? In the meantime, Stiles thought it was best to just sleep.

\---

He woke to his father shaking him, telling him that they could leave now. His head was hurt less than they thought and he would be in pain, but not anything he couldn’t manage on his own.

The drive was an angry silence perpetuated by the Sherriff and a repentant one by Stiles. Wordlessly Stiles went up the stairs to his bedroom and closed the door. He needed to do some research and he wanted to sleep some more.

Turns out Stiles didn’t need to sleep as much as he thought. He needed a way to stop hurting himself and to help his friends. He needed a way to stop hurting his father. He needed a way to stop caring too much about what Derek did. What he said. How he looked at Stiles. He needed a way to stop hurting himself beyond the physical plane.

Always nearly dying had sort of become normal for Stiles, and the fact that that was normal for him was enough of a wakeup call.

Which is why when his search turned to crossroads deals, Stiles wasn’t even hesitant.

\---

It was easy to sneak out that night. It was easy to untangle his bike from inside the garage, walk it out and pedal out to the nearest dirt road intersection he could find. It was easy to assemble the bits of demonic paraphernalia for the ritual. It was easy to bury them. It was not easy to wait.

For a few minutes. For an hour. For two hours.

Apparently demons don’t have a thing for punctuality. Or Stiles got the recipe wrong. He turned and left. He’d been talking out loud to himself, reciting his reasons and his desires once the demon hadn’t shown up right away. Two hours of whispering to the wind how much he couldn’t stand hearing Scott’s bones break or seeing Derek school his face into anger to hide the pain of having more people he cared about senselessly murdered. He couldn’t stand being beaten and having to see his father’s eyes sag into tearful alcoholism.

When he got home, Stiles slipped into his bed and went to sleep. He had school the next day and he hadn’t even written that two-pager he was supposed to have done. He could cram it really quickly or he could just use the hospitalization as an excuse. He’d get out of it. It was history and not Mr. Harris.

\---

School was the disgusting kind of normal it usually is. Everybody walked by without knowing their lives were in danger, that there were werewolves that only wanted to rip them to ribbons. Threads.

Sometimes it was too much Stiles to handle. Sometimes it was too exhausting knowing so much and being unable to share it with someone. It wasn’t as if he could tell Scott he was a werewolf. Heading to the restroom, Stiles threw up his hood. It didn’t sound as if anyone was in the restroom so Stiles headed over to the sinks, wet his hands and ran them over his eyes and down his cheeks, washing away some of that tiredness that clung to his steps.

And then the door opened, the mirrors shook and the stall doors all clattered open like shutters in a tornado. In stepped a man, all hard edges and clean lines in a dark suit with a vibrant red tie.

He was sexy, but the tie was nauseating for some reason.

“You called?” he said, picking at a nail not sparing a glance for Stiles.

“Excuse me?” Stiles replied, pulling back his hood again, bracing himself to push past the man and run into the halls to disappear.

“At the crossroads. You want to make a deal, Stiles. I’ll give you a deal.” He looked up and his eyes opened up into pools are dark miasma. Definitely not human, clearly a demon. Stiles opened his mouth to reply but the demon continued, “I’ll give you what you want. Everything you talked about for two hours last night.”

“I have a few questions first.”

“Shoot.”

“What’s your name?”

He laughed and smiled at Stiles as if he were a pet that had just done a trick. “Back when I was human, you mean? Morris. Cooper Morris.”

“Why didn’t you show up right away?”

No laugh, but a more focused expression. “I wanted to watch you. See who you were. I like to know who I’m crawling around in.”

“Oh. That answers the last question.”

“Yes.” The man sidled up to Stiles, backing him up towards the sinks and sliding a knee between his legs, the slick suitpants sliding between denim so softly. “To give you everything you want, to save daddy the pain, save your pals from being hurt, save yourself the injury, save the broody one from hating your fucking guts every time you leak adoration and arousal near him, I’m going to get you for my meatsuit. This one was dead when I slipped in, and it’s time for a new one. I’ll take care of your body bag. It’s in the deal. I get you for a year. That’s a good deal. I’m sentimental like that. Most get what they want and in ten years they go down into the pit. But I’m not like the others, and… I like the color red on you. Be it cotton… or blood.”

Stiles couldn’t breathe. His vision was getting heavier and he couldn’t look at the demon’s face as it spoke, as it listed each painful barb in Stiles’ heart. But the deal was never a question. If anything, the pain made it easier to agree. “Ok. What do I do?”

“You scream.” He smiled and without a pause for any sounds from him, the demon kissed Stiles, thrusting his tongue into him before his throat was opened up by something else.

Smoke. The demon. It was in him.

The man slumped forward, dead and empty now. Stiles’ hands shoved him off unceremoniously and his feet forced him to turn without his control until he was facing the mirror. His eyes slid into place, two voids.

“Hello Stiles. I’m Morris.”

And together they walked out of the restroom, leaving a dead man in their wake and pursuing a new life.

It was time for Stiles to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys! This my first fic on AO3, Teen Wolf, and the first I've written in a LONG time. Let's see how it goes! Warnings, tags, rating, etc may change as I go. I have no clue what I'm doing. ;) I'll probably update on Sundays. If I have a schedule, I'll be better about it! I'm on tumblr as [FoolProofPoem](http://foolproofpoem.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

Except he couldn’t sleep. Stiles thought he’d be put down into a slumber, like a coma, while a year flashed by before his eyes. Not so apparently. It was a strange experience, being trapped inside your own skin, aware, and being unable to control anything. Stiles was locked away in his own head.

_Morris, can you hear me? It’s uh… Stiles here. Doin’ ok?_

_Stiles, I hardly need you to shout to hear you. Stop flailing._

_Oh, well, I’m right here if you need me to fill you in on something._

_I have all of your memories already. I just need you to be quiet. Try thinking in your own head so you can stop thinking in mine._

With that, Stiles became quiet, seeing his body move without the same jerky movements he was known for. His walk seemed more confident and weighty, as if instead of tripping over air, his feet were leaden and solid. It wasn’t Stiles, but then Morris must know that and must be doing it on purpose. It would be terrible if anyone found out, but then, Morris must know that too.

Stiles wasn’t going to trust him, but the deal was good. Or at least Stiles thought it was good.

The day passed uneventfully, the correct answers stolen from his head when he was called on. No distractions from his ADHD. No looks toward Lydia in class. At lunch, he was quieter, joked less easily, and was snappish, blaming it on his head. Scott and Isaac were blissfully unaware, though a comment about smelling sulfur near them was not unnoticed.

School bled into the afternoon and soon Stiles and Morris were driving the jeep back home. There was no pack meeting that night, wouldn’t be until the weekend, so they had time to themselves to think. To adjust. Stiles wasn’t the captain of this ship anymore.

_I’m not usually that much of an asshole._

_You want them safer, don’t you? Maybe they need distance from you. You’re a weak, little human Stiles, they need to stop thinking of you as their teddy bear. They need to leave you out._

_But I’m pack…_

_You’re not pack, Stiles. You’re a pet. Once this Alpha business is over, I’ll make sure they leave us alone and then you won’t have to deal with Derek. It’s really for the better. In a year, you won’t even hurt._

And that was that. No more talking. Despite the inability to move, Stiles was oddly calmed. His nervous energy was gone it seemed, sapped by the demon possessing him. They shifted on the mattress before getting up to grab his laptop and bring it back to the bed.

_My pass-_

_Shut up, Stiles._

Flawlessly, as if his muscle-memory had stayed, Morris moved Stiles’ fingers over the keyboard to enter the password.

Pulling up Chrome, Morris examined all kinds of things, reading too quickly, moving his eyes too quickly for Stiles to catch onto anything besides the occasional word – Werewolves, alphas, wolfsbane, sulfuric acid, snare traps, heavy duty chains. None of it made sense, but it all seemed very… dangerous.

\---

The week scraped by for Stiles. Nothing happened, no one was dying, no one was being attacked and his homework was still being designed for subpar intelligences. Curiously what Stiles was annoyed about the most was the fact that he couldn’t taste anything. Morris had to feed him to keep up appareances and to preserve his body, but every time he’d take a swig of milk from the jug, nothing happened for Stiles. No quenching, no creamy feel, nothing. It wasn’t as if he were hungry either, just that if it was happening, he’d rather have some sensation.

Tonight was the pack meeting. Stiles wasn’t too sure what they’d discuss. Derek would probably growl at Stiles again for taking the beating from the Alpha. Stiles couldn’t care less. And if Stiles couldn’t care less, who knows how much Morris could absolutely _not_ care less what Derek thought about that.

Stiles caught a few stray thoughts from Morris once in a while. Hatred for Derek was probably the most common, though Stiles hadn’t a clue why. Although, the thoughts he heard seemed like rehearsed rejection lines rather than any substantial ire.

Throwing the jeep into gear, he tore out of the drive with abandon, leaving streaks of hot rubber on the suburban street as he headed to the Hale house. Even though Derek had gotten a small apartment earlier in the month, everyone still met at the house. It would only be Derek, Scott, Isaac, Jackson, Lydia and Stiles, but it was everyone they had.

Hopping out of the jeep, Stiles walked the rest of the way up the walkway. It looked like everyone was there waiting for him. As he walked into the living room, all of the werewolves looked up and then back down at the map spread between all of them on some upturned crates.

“No ‘Hello, Stiles!’? Come on guys!” Jackson huffed and Scott smiled. Derek didn’t do anything. “What are we looking at?” He asked, trying to get some dialogue going.

“Where we think the Alpha pack might be hiding. They lost their biggest guy. They’ll all be weaker for it, so we’re trying to pick out a place they could be hiding to flush them out,” Lydia answered, adding, “But without you. Too many concussions in a row.”

“Oh, ha ha. I can help guys.” Derek looked up from the topography of the Beacon Hills Preserve to growl at him angrily.

“Don’t even think about it,” he bit out, “Stop trying to get yourself killed.”

“Stop bossing me around like you own me!” Morris was pissed. Stiles could feel it. This wasn’t anger on his behalf. Morris was angry because it was another person trying to control him, make him do as they please. It was really enough after so many years carving wicked curses into the souls in the pit. He was expert. He was precise, and when he crawled out, craven and empty, he vowed never to let another force control him. He was in control. He was the one that decided what happened. He was the one to call the shots. Not Derek, whose eyes had flashed red and was coming around to face Stiles head on.

“Don’t,” he began, prodding Stiles in the chest with a blunt, but just as piercing finger, “Yell at me.”

“Then don’t,” began Morris, grabbing hold of Derek’s finger before he could pull it away, too fast for a human to grab, but not inconceivably so, and bent it back with a quick shake of his wrist till they all heard the sharp pop of dislocated finger. “Fucking touch me again,” Morris finished.

_Morris!_

Morris’ glare was dark in the face of Derek’s shock. Isaac’s eyes were wide open and the rest were hopelessly aghast. Derek was cradling his finger to his chest as he snapped it back into place with only a small flinch of pain.

“Don’t come near me. Don’t try to protect me. I am tired of your shit.”

_MORRIS!_

“I don’t need you touching me. I fucking hate you. Don’t you even understand personal space? Stay the FUCK away from me, asshole.”

_Morris…_

_Shut up, Stiles. It’s for your benefit. You told me to take care of Derek. I’m taking care of Derek. If he keeps having to worry about this body, then he’s weak. He doesn’t love you like you love him. No loss._

_I don’t need him to love me._

_That’s not what you said last week, now is it?_

“Get out.” Derek’s eyes were flashing red constantly, his rage barely in check. With the finger that was injured, he pointed Stiles’ way out the door. The others still silent, pained.

“My pleasure, fucker.” And Stiles was out the door, walking to the jeep, a sick smile painted on his face by Morris.

_Be careful what you wish for, Stiles._

They took a detour on the way home, near a nursery where Morris collected samples of wolfsbane.

_I’ve always loved kicking dogs when they’re down, Stiles._

But Stiles was unsure which dogs Morris was talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol. I said I'd update in a week and... it's been a day. oh well! Leave comments! I'll answer 'em! :) (also feel free to tell me what you don't like, or directions you'd like to see this go. I like hearing input!)


	3. Chapter 3

When Stiles arrived home, he sensed a werewolf’s presence inside his house. The demon could hear better than the average human, and he picked up the clumsy and impatient nature of Scott fiddling with something in his bedroom. The Sherriff shouldn’t be home at the moment as he was still trying to piece together the mystery man found dead in the men’s bathroom at Beacon Hills High. Right now, the Sherriff was even too distracted to really be angry at Stiles showing up with inexplicable injuries again.

Stiles left the wolfsbane clippings in his jeep and locked it as he entered the house in case Scott decided to snoop around as he left. Morris wasn’t planning on having Scott around for much longer tonight. There were things to do after all. He shucked off his shoes and padded down the hallway past the kitchen to the stairs, ascending them doggedly and tiredly so Scott would think he were exhausted. He trained his face into a sour grimace as he opened the door and offered some fake surprise at seeing Scott. His heart didn’t jump.

“Oh. Hey Scott, what’re you doing here?” Morris moved Stiles over to his desk to grab his laptop and then to the bed to back himself up to the headboard as Scott turned from the door to face him, sitting at the foot of the bed. He was holding Stiles’ lacrosse stick, twisting the strings between fingers.

“Are you ok, Stiles? You’ve been acting really weird. It’s like you’re totally different. Did you hit your head that hard last week?” Scott looked up with his asymmetrical jaw and his soft puppy eyes.

“What? Naw, I’m ok. I’m just pissed at Derek. He doesn’t respect any of us and he gets really into my personal space. I just had enough of it.” Scott shifted more, crossing his legs up as he sat fully on the bed.

“No, I mean… Well I mean that too, but I can sorta see that. I mean at school. You don’t ever ask me to come over and he don’t joke very much.”

“Nobody laughs anymore.” Morris’ words were a shock to Stiles. They were ringing so frighteningly true. Stiles must have realized it at some level – that Scott just threw little smirks and half-smiles his away after a quip instead of his raucous belly laugh. Lydia never rolled her eyes anymore either, which was kind of her version of a laugh at Stiles’ humor. It was certainly a dart in Stiles’ side hearing the truth slip so easily out of Morris’ mouth. “And besides, every time I’ve asked you to come over and play COD or something you make up an excuse. Or you’re at Allison’s. Or you talk about her the whole time you ARE here. You’re not fun anymore.”

Ouch. In his mind, Stiles was fidgeting something fierce. Could subconsciousnesses get panic attacks? Scott’s face fell  faster than an anvil in a Looney Toons cartoon.

_Could you stop squirming? I’m trying to guilt this pup._

_I think he’s had enough. Scott is my best friend!_

_But is he though? Has he really been there for you? Haven’t you pretty much saved everyone’s lives? And how did they repay you? Treating you like a burden. These aren’t your friends Stiles. You don’t have friends._

“But… I don’t mean to. I miss you Stiles.” Scott looked truly repentant.

“Not enough apparently.” Morris wasn’t a sap. He didn’t care for Scott’s mopey face. “I really need to sleep Scott. Can you just go?” With the dismissal, Stiles refocused on the screen of his laptop.

“Um yeah. Sure.” Numbly, Scott walked past Stiles to the window, reaching out to brush his fingertips across Stiles’ arm or shoulder. Stiles shifted the moment before he could. Stiles was so grateful Morris didn’t look up to see the tear forming in Scott’s eyes or the trembling left in his fingers or the shakey breath exhaled into the cooling night air as he jumped to the ground and biked home, fighting back the heartache.

Scott lost his best friend and Stiles was alone.

After an hour, searching quickly through amazon for a few things and browsing the internet, Stiles went outside to retrieve the wolfsbane clippings. He went back up to his room and lined up all the flowers and leaves on paper towels and sandwiched them between pages in his dictionary. Soon they’d be dry and able to be crushed into a powder.

\---

At school, Stiles drifted through the hallways without any care in the world. At least he appeared that way, even though he, and even Morris, felt a bit out of place without Scott tagging along with him, pulling and pushing at him as he joked about lacrosse or Greenberg or Coach Finstock. In AP Calc, Lydia started throwing him odd looks every once in a while that he ignored. Mr. Harris had nothing really to say to him considering Stiles was quiet, not fidgety and answered all the questions correctly. It was starting to grate on the man’s nerves. It was as if Stiles was giving blue balls for his massive sadist erection. Morris smiled at the thought.

At lunch, Stiles picked a new table to eat at alone. On Wednesday, Lydia suddenly appeared and set her tray down with a measured amount of grace – enough to clatter, but not enough to jostle her glass of orange juice.

“What’s up Stiles?” she asked as she tipped her body forward, getting into the seat, exposing her cleavage. Morris sighed in his head and maintained eye contact with Lydia.

“Nothing. Why?” Lydia pursed her lips and picked up her fork to push around the pilaf on her plate.

“I just flashed my cleavage and you didn’t even look. You’re not talking to Scott. You’re answering every question in classes and you aren’t distracted or spazzing out. What the fuck has gotten up your ass? Are you depressed?”

Morris laughed, “Hardly, Lydia. I’m just tired of some stuff. I’m done. Over it. Finished. _Finito_.”

“Well you need an attitude adjustment and you need to get laid. Clearly by a guy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Morris frowned as Lydia smirked like she won the top prize at one of those rigged carnival games.

“Just that you clearly aren’t swinging my way, and you blew up at Derek. Super over-dramatic. You are soooo GAY. ”

“You don’t have to be gay to like guys. You could be bi. Or pan. Or demi. Why should you care?” Morris stabbed at the carrots on his plate, over boiled and somehow dry.

“Because it looks bad on me to not have at least one dopey puppy fawning over me that I ignore. It’s a status thing. I’m on top here and I like to maintain that. I don’t do losers, but losers are helpful. You ignoring us makes for a bad rep. So get over yourself, sneak into a bar and get some ass.”

“God you’re so selfish.”

“No. I’m calculating and I don’t do anything but win. You should know that.” Morris did know that. All of Stiles’ memories of Lydia was her being brilliant and beautiful and fierce, even at her lowest.

“I’ll get back to you on that one.”

“You do that.” She left, picking up her tray again, though nothing had been touched, Morris could have sworn that she had eaten. It was certainly one of Lydia’s tricks, but she was eating when she got back to her own table with Jackson, so maybe she just had one of those eating styles that is a mirage of sustenance.

The afternoons were much the same as the mornings and soon Friday rolled round and Stiles was free to go home. When he got to the parking lot. Scott was waiting for him.

“Um, Hey Stiles!” He looked sheepish. Stiles’ heart twinged. Morris didn’t have a heart.

“What’s up.” Not even really a question. Morris could care less.

“I was just wondering if you could drive me home? Mom dropped me off before a shift, but she couldn’t be here to pick me up and she has the car.”

_You could do that at least Morris._

_Fine._

“Fine.” If Scott had been a puppy (a potato-puppy probably) his ears would have shot up and he would have started one of those wiggle dances where his tail would have moved his whole body.

“Cool!” They clambered into the jeep and Stiles put it into gear and headed to the McCall residence.

“You know… I’m not doing anything right now. We could go back to your place an-”

“No.” Scott looked down into his lap. Sighing slowly, raggedly. “Sorry, I mean, I have a few things I need to put together for a project and Dad is being kind of a hardass. They still haven’t found that dead guy on any of the missing persons lists. Maybe next week.”

“Oh. Ok. Next week I guess.”

The rest of the ride was filled with a semi awkward silence until Scott climbed out of the jeep and offered a wan smile and a stilted wave good bye as Stiles backed out of the McCall drive and headed home.

\---

As he hopped up the steps, he retrieved a package from amazon and headed down into the basement. All of his mother’s belongings were hidden in the darkened, dusty corners. The sheets that were covering them seemed soaked in his father’s pain and loneliness. Morris tore them off unceremoniously. Digging through, looking for the flat lacquered pine box he knew to be among the piles. Having found it, Morris flicked the latches and dug around, pulling out of the silver chest a wickedly sharp and beautiful silver knife. It had been the knife with which the newly married Stilinskis had cut their wedding cake.

Stiles hadn’t seen it in years. He’d almost forgotten about it.

Morris put everything back approximately the way it had been. It wasn’t as if the Sherriff would be coming down there anyway. They headed up to Stiles’ bedroom, box in one hand, knife in the other. It was the last ingredient.

Morris grabbed everything together he’d need: a box cutter, the knife, the now dried and flattened wolfsbane, a bowl of hot water, a tall cup, the package. He opened up the amazon box and pulled out the plastic tub of liver of sulfur (‘ _for jewelry-making and patina purposes only’_ it read). He stacked the wolfsbane up into a pile and then chopped them up with the blade of the box cutter as if he were going to snort a line of cocaine. The purple-fuchsia powder was mesmerizing. Morris scooped it up into the bowl of hot water and then scooped out a few caked pieces of liver of sulfur. It smelled awful and had a weirdly yellow-green-black color that mixed with the purple-pink of the wolfsbane. Morris stirred it all together and let it sit for a minute before he placed the knife into the tall cup and submerged the knife in the sulfuric mixture.

After about five minutes, Morris put on gloves and pulled out the knife, blackened and tarnished with iridescent patterns shining through the black like oily puddles in parking lots. He smiled. What better way to cut down an Alpha than with a silver blade infused with wolfsbane tarnish? If it could, the blade looked even more eerie and wicked, shining like crow’s feathers.

Time to have fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm still trying to figure out when I'll update. I know I've been really inconsistent. I don't have classes on fridays so I may be updating then AND on sundays. Saturdays i don't have anything either, but it's a toss up. Anyway, I wanted to call attention to the updated tags and ratings! Demon!Stiles is going to get pretty dark in the next chapter, especially before it gets better. THERE WILL BE A HAPPY ENDING, DON'T WORRY. I'm not really one for tragic endings unless it's a one shot. Also I finished outlining the whole fic, so it'll have about 21 chapters. Unless of course I go over that. But that's why I outlined it all!


	4. Chapter 4

A day later it was Saturday and a new moon was in the sky. The night seemed darker with no light coming from the heavens and Morris grinned manically, feeling his demonic power increase slightly. Tonight was perfect to hunt down one of the Alphas. Morris wrapped the blade he had made the day before in a square of linen he had cut from the thick sheets in the basement that covered Stiles’ mother’s possessions.

_Ready to have some fun Stiles?_ There was little Stiles actually enjoyed in the way Morris was handling his life, but the one thing he did appreciate was Morris upholding his end of the deal to help kill the Alphas.  Cuts from this blade wouldn’t heal. The Alphas would be stuck without one of their greatest strengths. Plus the blade would really hurt, being both silver and wolfsbane. If Morris could corner one of them, he could easily deal with them and weaken their pack even more significantly. Stiles wasn’t quite sure what a demon could really do as far as physical strength against the werewolves, but hopefully it would be enough to not die.

_I don’t if FUN is the right word, but I’m ready for some BAMF action, man!_

_Well, I think you’ll find the show quite entertaining._

They slipped outside quietly, though again the Sherriff was working late and hopped into the jeep. Driving out to the east end of the preserve, opposite Derek’s side, Stiles hummed in his head along with Morris to Queen and Supertramp. Somebody to Love was an odd favorite of theirs. The mood was so juxtaposed Stile couldn’t even handle it and his inner grin manifested on Morris’ face.

It felt good to agree, to work together, to finally do something to help the pack.

They parked the jeep off a trail and Stiles slid off his seat and onto the cold ground, crunching the leaves and twigs beneath him.  Stiles takes a deep breath, breathing out through his mouth. He rolls his neck on his shoulders and hears a few pops.  He stars walking into the forest, mindful of the shadows and the starlight breaking through the leaves, little shards of mirror reflecting the glint in his eye. His steps become more confident and quieter as Morris wraps himself up into the shadows of the night, reaching out to feel the presence of the lives around him. All woodland creatures and sturdy oaks and pines.

Then, as if he were struck in the face, Morris stops, jerking his neck back and swiveling to the northeast. There – a trail of bloody brown smoke, slowly percolating into the earth – the scent of a werewolf. Now it was only a matter of time following this trail even they couldn’t hide from a demon to find an Alpha. It seemed as if there was only one on this trail however.

Morris cloaked himself again in the darkness, flight of foot, running between shadow and tree, seemingly teleporting from one place to another, only slowing as a patch of starlight became unavoidable, though his footsteps remained silent.

It wasn’t long before Stiles came up on a shack-like cabin. At first glance no one would have thought anything could live in there, but here he was smelling the stench of a wet dog, sweaty, just back from a run through the woods.

Expertly, Morris approached the door. Just before he opened it, he noticed the open window. Silly werewolves. No salt, no problem. As Morris inspected the window, glancing in to see the female werewolf lying on a mattress, he started to climb in, waving his hand to throw open the door as he slipped into a corner of the room, the darkest where the light of the fire inside the hearth couldn’t reach. It danced at his feet, threatening to reveal him even as the werewolf sat bolt upright, shifted and facing the door.

After a heated moment of tense shoulders and lengthened claws, she relaxed, shrugged, and went outside to see if there was something waiting outside for her. She closed the door and turned around to go to her bed just as Stiles glanced up from picking at his nails, the blade unwrapped from its cloth on his lap, all together resting in a wooden chair by the fire. He smirked.

She laughed, “Cute trick. You’re the little human one, aren’t you?” She sidled up a couple of steps closing the distance between them, but she stopped a distance away from him. She was smug and irritating. Her smile was saccharine and morbid. She was a killer.

Morris was the nightmare she never knew she had.

“Cute? Yes. Little? I suppose I am only 147 pounds of sarcasm. Human…? Well, on the outside.”

_On the inside too asshole! I’m still here._

_Shut up Stiles, I’m being dramatic. You’re ruining the scene._

The werewolf’s smile faltered a little, eyes squinting, questioning. “Well, you’ll die just the same anyway!” She unsheathed her claws and advanced quickly. Morris threw up a hand and the werewolf couldn’t come any closer.

“Ah, ah, dear! We were having a conversation! I don’t even know your name!” The wolf snarled, fighting against the force, scratching at the air vainly as if she could pull apart whatever was stopping her. “Now, now, calm down! I just want to chat!”

“What are you?! I’ll rip your fucking throat out--”

“With your teeth. Yes, yes. I’ve heard that one before. You werewolves seriously ought to pick up some better phrases to use or we’ll all get used to them. It bores me. I don’t like to be bored. Now, what. Is. Your. Name?” Morris grit out the last bit in a growl as he flicked his wrist and sent the werewolf flying back into the door.

She growled, and lunged toward Stiles again, but he just threw her into another wall. No need to beat up the door. “We can do this all day, or you can just tell me what your name is.” Morris’ voice had an air of humor in it. He was beginning to really enjoy himself.

“Kali,” she spat out, eyes flashing a dangerous red.

“Oh put away your little tricks. I’m in control here. I tell YOU what to do. I call the shots. Dearest Kali, you’re going to be my precious messenger.” Morris stood up, closing in on Kali as she snarled fiercely from her corner, ready to slash out his trachea at the first chance he gave her.

_Message?_

_Yes, Stiles. We’re going to make sure these mutts stay out of Beacon Hills._

_Thank you._

There was a table and what looked to be some heavy duty chains hanging in another corner of the room. With blade in hand, he snatched Kali’s wrist, while making sure she couldn’t move and dragged her body up onto the table. He kept her immobile as he chained her arms back under the table so that her elbows were bent uncomfortably hugging the table from behind as if his father had handcuffed her with a board on her back. Morris wrapped her legs at the ankles around the table as well as her neck in the same fashion. She wriggled and growled, gnashing her teeth, hair a blizzard across her face.

“Oh Kali… Such beautiful skin.” Morris tenderly stroked her cheek and pulled her hair from her face and tucked it behind her ears. “My, what big _teeth_ you have!” Morris laughed. Kali looked truly afraid for the first time.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, holding up the black blade, catching the starlight that streamed through the windows. “It’s silver! Which might really be nothing, a little more tingly than a normal knife against your skin, but the black tarnish? That’s wolfsbane. I’ve only heard your growls, why don’t we hear some pretty screams?” Before she could brace herself against the bite of the cool metal, Morris had deftly slid the sharp blade from rib to rib across the front of her bare midriff where the tank top stopped, just lightly enough to draw blood, but not enough to cut very deep.

And oh how she screamed so beautifully.

“It’s not going to heal so quickly either, so don’t get your hopes up. You’ll be hurting for a while.” Her breath began to become ragged and she sucked in a sharp breath to begin howling for the twins’ help. “Ah, ah! None of that!” chastised Morris as he slipped a fresh blossom of wolfsbane into her open mouth. Sadly, her instinct was to close her mouth against more intrusion and she tensed against the flower in her mouth, screaming even louder than before, sparkling tears dripping from her eyes.

“So pretty.” Morris pulled the tip of the knife up to the corner of her eye as she froze so still in fear and he flicked away a tear without cutting her. “No crying though. Whatever God you have cannot save you now. This is the world. This is Karma. Your hatred, your blind punishment, your sense of righteousness is unfounded here. We were fine. We were safe. Then you came to hurt us and I cannot let anything else happen. You think Derek owns this hamlet? _I_ am God here, and _you_ are a pestilence.” He gripped the crown of her head suddenly like a vice and began to etch into her face with the tip of the blade as she coughed and sputtered, trying to rid her mouth of the wolfsbane even as she choked on her own sobs, dropping fat wanton tears onto the wood beneath her. Her voice climbed octaves as she tried desperately to control herself, undecided between screaming, howling and wracking sobs.

“This is my mother’s silver. Was, I guess. From her wedding day.”

“You’re sick.” Kali spat out, still crying and squirming against Morris’ tight hold around her head.

“We’re all sick in some place, honey.” Morris paused to press a kiss to Kali’s forehead. If anything pained her before, the gentleness of that kiss was as if a thousand of Stiles’ blades were dancing underneath her skin. Her screams subsided into desperate whimpers as each cut into her skin burned like fuchsia fire on her body.

Morris worked across one cheek, to her forehead and down the other cheek before going down her neck and across her breast bone. When he was finished, he let go of Kali’s head and wiped the bloody blade on her tank. He glanced around the room, ignoring her exhausted whimpers and found a hand mirror tucked aside her mattress. Crossing the room, he picked it up and brought it over to Kali.

“Let’s take a look now.” He said, brandishing the mirror so that Kali could see what he had etched into her skin. Across each of her cheeks was ‘ERICA’ and ‘BOYD’ while ‘MUDERER’ was spelt across her forehead. Surrounding these largest words were other names, all smaller, but numerous trailing across every inch of her upper body that Morris attended to.

“How--” She shuddered, new drops bursting from her spent tearducts as she hyperventilated trying to close her eyes against her own reflection. Stiles kept them open for her. It had taken so long for Morris because each name had to be carved into her backwards to show up in the mirror.

“How did I know each soul you stole from this earth? How did I know each name you massacred? Because I can see every inch of you Kali. All I needed was your name.”

“Please. Kill me. Please.” Morris frowned, throwing the mirror into the mattress, as a flash of the blade caught her eye and sunk into the thick flesh of her bicep.

“NO! You don’t GET to die! I told you already, you’re my little messenger. You’re going to go back and make sure no one bothers us again.”

“The twins… They’ll kill you all. And I’ll help. I’ll tell your pack what you did, you fucking human piece of shit.” Her anger was back, anger not only for her indecent rage but for This petty human dominating her on her won ground.

“No you won’t you mongrel, because,” Stiles’ eyes shifted into the blackest voids as he blinked. Kali’s face was ridden with shock. Somehow, even as the world was more tinted, Stiles could see clearer, sharper, and he could see the red smoke that dripped from his body like heavy fog from dry ice into the earth. “ _Because I’ll swallow your fucking soul.”_

“I’ll see myself out. Good night, princess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.... I had extra time and I wrote another chapter. I'm sorry it's so creepy! I don't think things are going to really get better until chapter 7 or 8, just so you know. I still love you!


	5. Chapter 5

Sweaty and still breathing heartily, Stiles entered his house, key twisting in the lock loudly like a death sentence. As if to play the part, there his father sat in at the kitchen table, arms crossed, expectant and the closing of the door slammed into their ears like a gavel coming down in a courthouse.

“And why are you so late coming home?” The Sheriff looked at Stiles accusingly. There wasn’t much compassion in that gaze and no wiggle-room in those crossed arms. Guilt seeped into both Morris and Stiles. The demon had taken a small liking to the warm but stern man as he commanded Stiles into perfect chivalry.

“I was, eh… out.  I had to take Danny home from a bar. That’s all.” It was a bold faced lie, but probably believable enough for the Sheriff.

“Are you two…?” The Sheriff wasn’t looking directly at Stiles, eyes downcast toward Stiles fidgety hands.

“What? No! I was just taking him home. He was drunk. That’s all. I’m the only one that has a car it seems like.” His father relaxed to a degree, though he didn’t seem convinced. It was enough for one night though.

“That’s good. Take care of your friends. You’re a good guy Stiles. Just, just give me a note or something. I don’t like coming home and not knowing where you are.”

“Sure.” There was a lull and Stiles turned to head down the hall, dragging his tired feet up the carpeted steps and over the threshold into his bedroom. He collapsed onto his bed, his body too exhausted to stand another moment, even though Morris could have forced him to stand for hours more without any apparent injury.

\---

For days there had been no mention of Alphas or werewolves around Stiles. It’d been a couple of weeks. The boredom had taken its toll on Stiles. Morris was becoming antsy. It was mid-October and only a month into the deal. They were a twelfth of the way through their time together, but Stiles felt as if he still knew little of who Morris actually was. Stiles’ old friends, the pack, had become more distant. Lydia still gave him the occasional odd look, more a self-satisfied smirk at figuring out his sexuality than anything else, though if he looked long enough, it seemed as if she were concerned.

No dangers had made themselves apparent in the absence of the Alphas either. It seemed like for so long they were being hunted or harassed by some evil or another. This downtime was so odd and… unwelcome almost. No one knew what to do. It was like being given a cake and being told not to eat it yet. Just all nerves and twitchiness. No one really knew what to do with their hands.

For Stiles, it was a little different. He didn’t have the twitchy anxiety, especially with the state of safety in Beacon Hills. It was more that he didn’t really know Morris. Most of the time his thoughts and Stiles’ thoughts just flowed around each other in their head comfortable, but then often there would just be emptiness. Morris’ side was empty or blocked off – Stiles couldn’t tell. It was so odd for him that there was this presence he could feel around, but didn’t know, like he suddenly woke up with a third arm, but he didn’t control it, but he could see it and touch it and he knew its boundaries.

This afternoon they weren’t really doing much. Morris was obliging Stiles by scrolling through tumblr for some semblance of entertainment. This was one of the moments when Morris was on autopilot, his mind elsewhere, but closed off to Stiles.

_Morris? Do you miss this?_

_What?_ The scrolling faltered and then stopped.

_Do you miss being a boring human, not doing anything?_

_Yes._

_Is that why you do the deals? So you can pretend to be human again?_

_No. This is the first time I’ve possessed someone as a deal. Usually I give them what they want and then drag them down in ten years’ time. You’re the first one I’ve taken as a meatsuit._

_I really hate that term. It goes against all of my social justice tendencies._

_Yes, I know what tags you track on tumblr, Stiles._

_I’m just wondering what made you decide to possess me._

_You reminded me of myself._

_How so? I mean, you’re kinda crazy, but you seem like you would’ve been the popular guy in school._

_Ha. School. Stiles… how old do you think I am?_

_Like, a hundred or something?_

_Stiles, I was born in 1620. Springfield, Massachusetts._

_Oh shit. I thought you were younger. You adapted very easily._

_I wasn’t under a fucking rock. I didn’t fuck around in Hell very long. They barely had to break me before I was begging to torture souls. I was… handy._

_Why did you go to Hell?_ Morris closed the laptop and pushed it away. He unzipped the hoodie he was wearing and threw it on the floor before shuffling under the covers. He rolled onto his side and bent his knees up a bit as if he were cold.

_I made a deal, much like yourself._

_What for?_

_Honestly? I wanted to protect people I loved. There was trouble back in England. I was 22 and our country was becoming a new nation. There was a call to arms by the King and men were being sent off. It was a little different for the colonials like myself. If we had a good enough reason, it was no bother for us to be struck from the roster. My mother was alone after my father died early and I had to tend the farm._

Bright images and memories of smells came into Stiles’ mind. He saw an untouched, virgin Massachusetts countryside, dotted with farms and small wooden buildings. He saw quaint streets and horses whinnying as their bridles were pulled against their tongues. He saw sunsets and sunrises over a treetops and hills and the bubbly rush of clear creek water over smooth stones. It was beautiful. Just before Morris quit showing things to Stiles, there was a man.

It was a man’s face, bearded, but trimmed. Rustic. His long hair pulled pack and tied with a small strip of leather. He had an aquiline nose and full lips with the most piercing blue eyes. His loose shirt was dirtied with labor and his cheeks flush with it too. A hand came to swat at a twig in his hair, and clap him manly on the shoulder before withdrawing, sliding a bit over the fabric and skin underneath that wasn’t covered by the linen. Stiles thought it might be better to not mention the man just yet, in case Morris hadn’t meant to show him.

_So you made a deal for what?_

_I made a deal so that I could kill the King’s man with the enlistee rosters._

_And how’d that go?_

_I’ll show you._

\---

“Cooper Morris, it is?” said a lithe man in a Parliamentarian uniform. His eyes were a deep brown, beautiful to behold until they became raven-black and empty. He smiled as Morris gaped. Stiles knew he was gaping, but only through an odd feeling. This was all a memory from Morris perspective. He couldn’t see his face at all.

“Yes sir.” Morris took off his cap and wrung it between his hands a bit. If anyone saw him writing in the Devil’s Book, he was sure to be strung up and hung.

“Oh please, boy, don’t call me sir. Sir was the first man’s heart I ate.” His smile became a toothy grin, his teeth all sharpened points as if he had sat down one day and filed them all to wicked sharpness.

“’Um, s-so I wanted to make a deal.” The man snorted.

“I gathered that, peasant. The question is WHAT you want.”

“I need a way to stop the enlistee roster from getting back to Boston.”

“You could always kill the King’s man. There would be much investigation about his death and little care about his paperworks. If one were to be amiss… What man would be the wiser?”

“Does he really have to die?”

“Does he really have to be a Royalist?” The man laughed heartily and doubled over, overcome with his own humor. It was all a sick joke to him, even though it wasn’t even that funny.

“Sir…” The man’s laughter snapped, and his eyes flared into black slits again as he threw his hand up and Morris was flying backwards into a tree.

“I told you not to call me ‘sir!’ I asked you nicely. I made it a joke. I smiled. Don’t make me kill you before you get your deal, boy!” There was such anger and fury inside the man. It had become very simple to realize that this was indeed a demon that Morris was conversing with.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Forgive me!” Morris picked himself up off the ground and walked cautiously back to where he had stood before, though he kept his gaze lower and tried not to appear as if the tree had hurt as much as it did.

“I’ll give you what you want, Morris. I’m going to help you. In ten years though, I’m going to come back up here and I’m going to tear the skin off your bones and pull out your soul and take you down to Hell. How does that sound?” Morris’ face drained of blood and his fingers trembled. His breath hitched and he nodded shakily.

“I’ll keep them all safe? Everyone here?”

“Everyone? Morris, you are more blind than I thought. Yes. Yes they’ll be safe.”

“Where do I sign your book?” The demon gave Morris a confused look for a second before bursting out in cackling laughter. His whole body shook with it again as if he were some sort of wind-up machine like the kind his father brought back once from Denmark. It had been his most favorite possession, so expensive and amazing, but his mother gave a withering look and it had become less fun. This was like that, the jittering action and the lack of joy at being laughed at.

“Oh Morris… We don’t keep black books. We seal this deal with more intimate means. Come closer.”

“Intimate… how?” Morris began to step closer, confusion pinching his eyebrows together as the demon motioned him closer with his hand until he could grab at Morris’ wrist. He pulled Morris to him, flush to his front and wrapped an arm around his waist with a hand cupping his ass as another arms pressed against his back and a hand held the nape of his neck. The demon was aroused and hot and his breath smelled like a roast.

“Don’t you know it’s a sin to love this Morris?” Morris’ eyes shut against the grin, but he felt the demon roll his hips into him, relishing the gasp Morris produced, himself becoming aroused.

“I would never act upon this sin.” He kept his eyes shut.

“Oh, but wouldn’t you like to?” another gyration of the hips had Morris very hard and very wanton, whimpering a bit at the demon’s words.

“Yes,” he hissed out, opening his eyes to the black-stained eyes. The hand on his ass slid between them to disappear into Morris’ trousers. Warm fingers encircled his cock and Morris shuddered, instinctively bucking his hips into the hand and gasping out, arching his back.

“Such an eager, precious boy. Kiss me.” Morris didn’t hesitate, pulling the demon’s face down onto his, biting at his lip before soothing it with a wet tongue that entered the demon’s mouth with ecstasy. The kiss lasted for a short time before his throat felt like it was being torn asunder by knives. He choked and tried to pull back from the pain, but he was frozen in place until he was just standing in the middle of the crossroads with a man slumped against his body. His hands moved up to push the demon off him, but it wasn’t Morris that pushed, it was something else and it wasn’t the demon that was in the body, because as soon as his hands touched it, he knew it was dead. His body was not his own.

_Hello, Morris. Want to touch yourself some more?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the awesome response guys! I'm really glad you like what I've written! For now, I have a 21 chapter outline, but it may be more. I seem to be writing more than I had thought, but that's all very good for you! I'll be at my brother's wedding next weekend and I might not update because I have to make the wedding cakes, but I may have some random time late at night to bust out a couple thousand words. We'll see, darlings! Find me on Tumblr at FoolProofPoem.


	6. Chapter 6

The time passes slowly. It goes day by day and each day is another slow drag of a hypothetical cigarette. Morris and Stiles suffocate from the boredom. Each action they perform is fluid, but as if through molasses. The fire in Morris’ tongue still burns against all the other pack members as he makes more distance between them. Stiles’ can’t tell whether it’s for the better or not. It just seems like each time the pack tries to understand Stiles’ new distance, Morris becomes more perplexing and ousts the pack from their domain. Stiles is an island, a drifting island that repels fruited shores.

But the Milky Way is still flowing and Andromeda is still spinning and the universe is still on its axis, ever tilted and dreaming of new stars to be born and old stars to send their souls to a new cosmos. Each leaf that falls from the trees fall from green branches to golden air to rust red earth and litter a carpet of down under their feet. The birds begin to sing later and sing softer and the bite of cold starts to gnaw on their skin. The world ages.

They all go in stages. Each pack member is a slow leaf to fall. Jackson gets fed up so easily with Morris’s judgment, the jokes about his adoption, the jokes that should never be made, the ridicule and mean-spirited laughs. Morris is merciless and cruel and Stiles cries. Just as Morris became human in his memory, Stiles eyes open to meet the ebony pools that penetrate the mirror in his bathroom. Jackson stops coming to pack meetings. His loss isn’t so much an impact though. He never was very involved in the first place.

Lydia glares with an even flame. She neither sparks nor gutters.

Scott quickly becomes just as distant. Morris had belittled Scott so well and so quickly before. It was so easy to minimize Scott before everyone else. There were easy critiques and sarcastically condescending remarks. Stiles cries. Scott still attends meetings out of duty, but he doesn’t speak to Stiles and he doesn’t smile or chuckle or show any response to him when there is an opportunity for interaction. Allison went with him.

Lydia glowers darkly. There is no heat. Her hair becomes less maintained.

Then goes Isaac. He was so resistant to Morris’ destruction. The boy, so innocent underneath a bravado to match anyone else’s, was devastated in turn. He wanted to believe so fiercely in goodness, but what goodness existed in the heart of a demon? When Stiles begins to cry, Morris lets loose a terrible, crippling pain to Stiles’ psyche. The world is consumed with red lightning and sharp, cold cuts to his mind. There is no escape, but Stiles weeps anyway for the golden-curled boy who only sought acceptance and love. A family.

Lydia has nothing. She is empty.

Then Derek, who plays witness to each of these ruined relationships and becomes weaker himself. Morris saves the best for him, when only the two are alone. It isn’t often, but by the time everyone hates him, Stiles is left with more time alone with Derek. Each instance is mockery and shame. Stiles can’t bring himself to cry this time. He is spent and weak and Morris turns then to flay Stiles with all of the reasons why this is necessary, tormenting him with the absence of Derek’s love.

“You’re alone.” He says.

“I know.” They say.

Stiles and Derek, infuriatingly written in stone and leaf and star and moon and sun and breath.

They are twined around the roots of some cosmic tree and forever locked in a spiral. Heavenward or otherwise is unknown to all but God.

And this time, Lydia smiles.

After a month, Stiles never goes back to the Hale house.

\---

“It’s not true!” Lydia screams. She picks up a charred piece of pottery and throws it at the wall next to Derek’s head. It shatters and reveals its blue painted china underneath as the soot and ash is shocked from its surface. Who owned it before it became mosaic? Derek whips around and his eyes flash red. His lips are a tight line and he growls a warning in his gut. Lydia is unaffected.

“He told me never to speak to him again! I told you the truth! You can’t just deny it and make it untrue. What was said was said. FACT!” yells Derek back. He takes a few steps to crowd Lydia into the wall behind her.

“Don’t you dare-” She says, pushing against Derek’s chest until he’s against the wall behind him and she is pinning him in, “use your patriarchic, archaic, physical, misogynistic actions to exert your masculine privilege and will over me. You will respect me as your EQUAL. Don’t you dare ever try to think that because you’re an alpha wolf means you’re above a female human. I will end you in the most precise demise you cannot imagine. I will tear you down to the dirt you’ll be in forever!” Derek’s features shifted to his human state, stunned and battered. He supposed that after Peter, Lydia would be sensitive to anything similar. Hell, any woman should be. Was he really perpetuating rape culture?

Yes. He was.

Not acceptable.

“I’m sorry.”

“I was speaking. ” She kept him trapped against the wall. Derek shifted uncomfortably, unused to being dominated so efficiently by a woman. It was healthy. “Anyway, it _isn’t_ true. Look at what he did! Stiles eliminated every single person. He didn’t bother with me because I kept my distance after Jackson to observe. It was predictable, but algorithmic. He did it all in order. Jackson wasn’t friends already, Scott was losing his friendship, Isaac didn’t want to believe that Stiles was being an asshole. Then you, and you were a whole different animal. No pun intended. He got rid of you so fast compared to the others. Even faster than Jackson!”

“But why would he do that?” Derek was pleading now. He couldn’t fathom why Stiles would act so cruelly so that he could eat lunch alone and have no friends. Why would he make everyone he had mothered for so long hate him? Derek was just thinking of him as his first friend.

“Because he’s trying to protect us! The alphas have been quiet too long. He knows we’ll find them and we’ll kill them or make them leave and he’s the weak spot. I’m immune and secondary. Stiles is practically your sidekick. He knows everything and he’s the best at research. His humanity is a liability and he doesn’t want the bite. He’s saving you the trouble of looking after him. If you don’t care about him, then when they’re looking for the weak link to threaten us, Stiles won’t be it and you won’t kill yourself trying to save him.”

“He’s just saving himself then.” Derek turned away from Lydia’s gaze. Her eyes narrowed and pierced him a little too deeply. He was already uncomfortable enough.

“Hardly! It’s because he gave up on YOU! He’s had a crush on you the moment you stepped into the picture. I used to be every fantasy that boy had since puberty. Maybe since before. Then Peter pulled Scott into this garbage and Stiles followed and he got wrapped up in you. I’m not his fantasy anymore. You are! And you care about him too! You too have been eye-fucking for _months_. So quit it. Just. Stop.” She punctuated the last bit with a few prods of a perfectly French-manicured finger. She stepped back to survey the results. Derek still wasn’t looking at her. In fact he just wasn’t looking at anything. His eyes were closed tightly and he was holding his breath. He sighed overly dramatically and slumped to the floor.

“I don’t like him.”

“You’re right.”

“What?”

“It’s not love, but it’s a hell of a lot more than just liking him. Get your ass of that floor and do something about it. Stop being such a dick.” Lydia spun and headed toward the door and paused at the threshold, turning back to Derek who was still slumped by the wall. “And clean up this pigsty.” And she left.

\---

Morris undresses and climbs into bed in his boxers. If it weren’t for being a demon, he would be having a headache. He crosses his room to the bed and climbs in.

_Care to have a little fun tonight?_

_Morris. I’m angry at you and I don’t feel like skinning bunnies._

_I was talking about jacking off._

_I wouldn’t feel it. Stop being an asshole._

_I’m sorry, okay? And I was gonna let you drive. I don’t get anything out of jacking off really. Why do you think we haven’t been? I’m not a prude, Stiles._

_Oh._

_Don’t try anything funny though. I mean, It’s a contract and I can stop you any time I want._

_Yeah. Ok._

It wasn’t that Stiles actually wanted to masturbate, thought that’s an awesome bonus. It was more that he would be able to feel things for a second and it would be great to be in control again. Even if it’s just for some self-love.

It wasn’t actually that Morris was being compassionate to Stiles. Morris knew Derek was watching the house. No one had watched the house in a while. Since he last went to a pack meeting. It was odd that Derek was watching, but jacking off might scare him off and Stiles shouldn’t be the wiser for it.

Morris shifted inside of Stiles and like a breath after being held underwater, Stiles came to the surface. He breathed in sharply and touched his arms, moving his hands over his bare torso. Just touching, Just amazing feeling.

He settled into his sheets a bit more and moved his fingertips under his waistband, teasing at the trail of hair that lead down to his hardening cock. Stiles was always sort of horny and this was no different, except maybe that it was the first time in too long and it felt amazing.

His whole body was electric as he slid the cotton down to his ankles and off one leg. Fully hard, he wrapped one hand of long fingers around his cock and slowly dragged up to the head, moaning quietly at the ecstatic feeling. It was so much in such a slow, soft move, but it was phenomenal. He moved his other hand down to his balls, rolling them between his fingers, pulling a bit as the dragged the other hand down his cock.

He squeezed tighter, moaned louder and moved more desperately, getting impossibly harder, until he started to leak precum. He swiped his fingers across the tip of his wet cock and lubed his dick between his fingers and his palm, gliding over the soft skin, worrying his balls and raising his hips as he imagined Derkek’s cool lips turn into hot tongue, laving at his cock. Stiles breath hitched at the thought of dark stubble pricking the skin between the base of his cock and his inner thigh as Derek sucked a sweet bruise into his delicate skin.

Savage red eyes connecting with his own earthy brown ones, invigorating him as Derek slid his mouth completely over Stiles’ cock and began to swallow him into his throat. Derek never looked away from him as his spit dribbled out the side of his mouth and he licked at it before it met the base of his cock. Derek was sloppy and hungry and _sexy_. It was delicious in every way.

Except it wasn’t real of course. But then, Stiles was a virgin and it was just a given.

“Derek!” he cried out suddenly, enveloped in the fantasy. Derek had deepthroated him and it was too much to bear in that instant. Thick short streams of cum arced in the air and landed on Stiles’ stomach, cooling quickly under the ceiling fan. He breathed heavily and reached over to the box of tissues on the nightstand. After Stiles was cleaned up, he felt his arms slacken and he was pushed back into the back of his own body.

It felt like shit. All the elation he had just built up vanished instantly. This was probably the cruelest thing Morris had done yet.

_I know it feels worse. I’ll let you drive once in a while. Sorry. A contract is a contract. And I’m a demon._

_Yeah…. Yeah._

Stiles whispered the second dejectedly, sad and diminished again.

Morris noted the wolf was long gone.

\---

Derek tore through the suburban streets until he hit the treeline, where he exploded into his wolf form, unable to keep himself at bay any longer. His emotions were at an all-time high. He was conflicted and screaming internally. He hoped to stave off this energy with running, but it was becoming frighteningly difficult to concentrate. His blood pumped and his vision reddened and he lost himself, howling a song of woe and diving into the thrush and the oaks before him. Too much. All of it.

But then, as he started to calm down and as he approached the edge of the Hale house, he smelled them. The alphas. They had been near recently. He slowed and quietly padded through the forest the rest of the way to his home.

There, one his door was the alpha pack mark above a spiral for revenge.  They were coming to exact a price for Deucalion’s end, and Derek was too unfairly pay for it.

\---

A month passed since Derek had found the mark.  A month since he heard and smelled and just barely stopped himself from seeing Stiles touch himself to the thought of Derek. It was mid-January now. Christmas had gone by unmarked again.

Derek was alone. Stiles was right.

But Stiles wanted Derek?

Derek didn’t understand boys.

They were all at a pack meeting, minus Stiles. They had only started coming back together at the Hale house with the promise of Stiles being absent. This was the first one Jackson had attended.

And despite all of their efforts, the whereabouts of the alphas still eluded all of them. Nobody could figure out where they were hiding, holed up away from the pack finding them. Lydia was brilliant. Scarily so, but she didn’t have the knack Stiles had for these sorts of things. She wasn’t confused, she simply didn’t have Stiles’ ability. The alphas were definitely not staying in one space, but every pattern Lydia saw was anticipated by the alphas and they changed course. The area was too large to sweep effectively or close in to a centerpoint. The going was rough.

They needed Stiles and Lydia was the only one that would admit it.

“He left _us_. We didn’t abandon him!” Scott argued exasperated. He wanted so desperately to forgive Stiles, but even after months, the pain of what he had said to Scott was still razors in his veins. Right to the heart.

“We need him. You can forgive him in your own time, but the Pack needs him before we get ambushed and fucked. I’m not about to deal with that. All I have is wolfsbane nail polish, lipstick and pepperspray. That’s no good if they pick me off the street. We need to go in first. They tried to kill us before when they had that Deucalion guy. It’s just the girl and the twins now. They’re weaker and outnumbered.” Lydia reasoned calmly. She hadn’t spoken about Stiles at all since she had yelled at Derek. “Fine. If none of you are willing, I’ll speak to him myself. Fuck you all.”

Derek had the decency to look ashamed.

\---

“Coming!” Morris swung open the door to reveal Lydia. He feigned surprise at seeing her. Humans were supposed to look surprised in situations like these. He frowned. “What do you want?” It almost came out as a statement rather than a sentence.

“I need your help. The pack needs you. They don’t want to admit and I was the only one with my head out of my ass. So you better fucking help us, because I’m done with their moping. Especially Derek’s.”

“Derek’s?”

“Yes. Are you going to invite me in?” Lydia wasn’t going to give Morris anything about that. He hadn’t felt Derek near the house since he let Stiles have a go at himself, so it was weird to hear about him. He thought that was done for. Derek shouldn’t like Stiles and Stiles should have ruined their budding relationship already. It wasn’t going right.

“Sure.” He left the door open and walked to the kitchen, pouring a glass of milk. Lydia pulled out a topographical map with scads of pen marks all over it and threw it on the table.

“Let’s play ‘Find the Alphas.’ I’m done. Your turn.” Morris gulped down the milk and glanced at the map. Despite the clutter, it was all very neat and color-coded, just packed in tightly and dense with information – dates, times, weather, moon phases, everything possibly important. There were arrows and circles and x’s everywhere.

And it only took a second for Morris to see what they were doing.

“I know where they were.”

“Oh fuck you.” She didn’t look like she disbelieved him. She just looked like she couldn’t figure out it all.

“They’re not running around leaving clues and patterns. They’re avoiding rainy days.”

“So?”

“So rain washes things away. They’re fucking with you. They start patterns and then they break them. They know you’re a math wiz, so they’re toying with that.”

“And how does that have to do with rain?”

“Because if there’s rain to wash things away, then they can’t use whatever it is they’re using to cover up their scent. They’re being careful.”

“Great! Let’s go!” Stiles laughed as Lydia scooped the map up and stuffed it into her purse. She glared at him.

“I’m not going over there.” She sauntered over to Stiles and reached up to his face, stroking it until her nails cover his neck. She grabbed his trachea and dug in sharply.

“If you don’t go deal with that house of fucking wolves, I won’t rip your throat out with my teeth, I’ll do it with claws and then I’ll dance in your blood.”

Since when was Lydia taking lessons in threats from a demon? Morris didn’t know, and he knew she was all human, but it was impressive. He swatted her hand away and grimaced.

“Fine. Let me grab a hoodie.”

\---

Climbing the steps, Stiles felt out of place. He felt so alien, walking into this house again. Morris plowed on without care. Everyone was glaring at him as he stepped into the room the pack was gathered in. It looked cleaner.

“Hey.” They all frowned. The welcome committee must have died.

“Stiles knows where they are.” On the way to the house, he had explained how he somehow came across a cabin in the preserve, hidden in a far copse that the werewolves must still be operating from. Of course, if the alphas weren’t playing nice, Morris was obligated to set them straight and this time the result would be blood. That bitch Kali would be dry by the end of this.

“We don’t need him. You already know. You wouldn’t have dragged him here otherwise.” Ouch Scott.

“I wouldn’t tell you, just to make a fucking point. And plus, I don’t actually know. Stiles has to take us because he only found it by accident. We have to retrace his footsteps.” It was a lie on Morris’ part, but that way we could pick up the trail the werewolves left behind, voodoo track covering regardless. Morris was a demon after all.

“We’re going in two days and Stiles is coming. That’s that.” Derek’s voice came down like a gavel in a courtroom. Done. Finished. _Finito_. No one protested.

“Good. Let’s go Jackson.”

“Wait! How am I supposed to get home?” asked Stiles as Lydia spun around and headed to the front door in a carefree stride. She whipped back around, curls bouncing perfectly and smiled a saccharine grin.

“Derek will take you home, won’t you, Derek?” Her smile twisted a bit. It was darker now as she turned to Derek.

“Sure.” And that was that.

Stiles was fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Guys! Hope you liked a little dark!Lydia. I think she's fun. ;) anyway, sorry for disappearing. I overestimated the time I would have flying home for my brother's wedding. I made this chapter longer to make up for it though! I hope? anyway, I should be back to updating on fridays and sundays (and saturdays if I have time). I'm working on an ad hoc major proposal right now though, so my time is a little bit consumed. wish me luck on that!!!! as always, find me on tumblr as Foolproofpoem.


	7. Chapter 7

The ride home was awkward to say the very least. Both Stiles were on the same pissy page. Stiles was frowning grumpily in his seat while Derek drove. His face was focused on the road, but he didn’t seem angry. Stiles had no idea what was going on in his head, but then, he often never did.

“I don’t want you hurt again.”

“I can take care of myself asshole. And you need me. You can’t scent them obviously, otherwise they’d be dead or gone already.” Stiles smirked. Derek had frowned even harder, his eyebrows smushing together into a mountainous unattractive unibrow.

“You… break too easily.”

“I’m capable, thank you very much. Don’t condescend to me.” Derek glared at the road outside even more if it was possible. He didn’t know what to do with Stiles. He kept trying to insert himself into the drama of pack life and he kept getting hurt. It was a ridiculous and futile process to try and extract him from the action. He would slip in uninvited somehow and worse this time was that he HAD to be included.

They continued to perpetuate the silence that had fallen after their brief spat. Stiles was fuming silently, pressed up against the passenger side door as far away from Derek as possible in such a cramped space. Derek seemed to be trying to expand. It was as if his arm edged further over the lip of the armrest into Stiles’ space. It was aggravating. All he wanted was to get out of the car as soon as possible so he could prepare something for when they met the Alphas. Morris had no idea what he was really planning on doing, probably just repurposing the blade he had used on Kali.

“Um… We should stop by that nursery in town that has wolfsbane to get you some clippings. They don’t have any cameras, so we can just sneak in there quickly.”

“I have some already. I went by the other day.” A lie and a truth, but Morris wasn’t letting his heart give it away. Yeah he’d been by, but he didn’t have any extra flowers or leaves. He didn’t really need any when it came down to it. He had all the powers of his demonic prowess at his dispoal. Poor little pups were nothing in the face of angry hellspawn. But Derek had unnecessarily offered to get Stiles more protection.

It earned him a side-eye and a twitch in his jaw.

“Oh. Ok. What are you doing with them?”

“Making pepperspray and cologne. I don’t know yet.”

“Those ideas sound… Good.” Derek had turned to face him, surveying the boy in his passenger seat. When had Derek really noticed Stiles? It seemed so recent and new. If Lydia hadn’t… Would he…?

\---

“Derek! Get your ass together!” A few days ago, Lydia had stormed into the Hale house with fire in her breath and electricity in her red mane. Her stilettos clicked on the wooden floor as she crossed the living room where they planned everything. Derek, scowling, was still frustratedly glaring at the topographic map of the Beacon Hills Preserve that lay before him.

“What do you need Lydia?” he deadpanned. He wasn’t really in the mood for whatever hair-brained lecture Lydia had rolling around in her head.

“I need you to save Stiles. Duh.” If Derek were an actual wolf at the time, his ears would have flipped up and turned toward Lydia. He looked up from the map, jaw a little slack before he realized it and snapped together.

“What?”

“He’s been such an asshole lately and it’s because of you!” She pointed an accusing, ring-adorned finger at the man as she stalked forward, swatting the map off the table. It rolled into a wide-mouthed tube as it fell under the table and toward the back wall. Derek groaned at it. Now it’d be all sooty.

“What? What did I do? He yelled at me! He broke my finger!”

“Because he likes you!” No. Hell. No. Was Lydia really trying to insinuate the old sandbox ‘He hates you because he loves you’ bullshit? That’s what it was – bullshit. Derek squinted at her, trying to see if she was swaying like she was drugged up somehow. She wasn’t. She was iron and steel and fire and he definitely didn’t smell anything besides her wolfsbane nail polish and lip gloss. It was absurd. So absurd really, that he burst out a loud “HA!” before her glare silenced him.

“No! I mean, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Or it makes complete sense. He likes you too much and you’re an asshole and you never ever show your feelings. He has been systematically removing everyone from his life. And he started with you. You were the easiest to get rid of. God, you’re so bitter! All you care about is your own whiny story. Other people are fucked up too, Derek. You know Stiles has lost people. He removed himself so he wouldn’t have to deal with it and so everyone else could be happy without him in the way, but we need him. I’m going over and I’m getting him for the pack meeting and you aren’t going to be an asshole. Just look at him and tell me you don’t care.”

He promptly told her to get out. She sashayed like a queen .

\---

Derek supposed it was about then that he noticed Stiles. It was like that gnawing feeling you were forgetting something for days and then suddenly you remembered, or when you were reading a book and skipped a sentence that wasn’t important but you _knew_ you skipped it so you desperately had to scour the page before to find it again. It was relief. Somehow he had suppressed his desire to look hard at Stiles, to memorize the channel from his hips to his waistband, the gingersnap-brown eyes that glared at him, that tongue that slipped out to moisten his lips. Stiles was… something else.

“Derek!” He was just staring. And now he’d been caught.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just said thanks. And you missed the turn. You sort of zoned out for a bit.” Stiles was both trying to glare at him and appraise him with a critical glance. He turned away back to the road, unsure what to think.

The drive continued without words until they pulled up near Stiles’ house, though not right in front in case the Sherriff was keeping an eye out. Stiles hadn’t left a note for him. He’d just left with Lydia. He could just say he went walking for a while. He moved to clamber out of the vehicle but Derek slipped his hand up Stiles’ upper arm and onto his shoulder, squeezing almost imperceptibly before dropping off and into his lap as Stiles turned a questioning glance his way.

“Um, be careful?” Derek said, though it sounded more like a question. Stiles rolled his eyes and huffed.

“You too I guess.” Stiles replied stiltedly before turning back to the house up the street and shutting the car door. He walked self-consciously as Derek’s lowbeams seemed to bore into him, the light feeling like a spotlight.

Ghastly.

He got upstairs to his bedroom without incident and Morris fell into the bed exhausted. He knew Derek was watching from the roof of the neighbor’s house.

Why.

\---

A couple days passed and finally it was the day to hunt down the remaining alphas. Morris couldn’t lie, he was excited. He had spent their free time re-tarnishing the blade so that it was at full strength. Some of Kali’s blood had wiped away the wolfsbane from the blade so he needed to replenish it. He had also gone to the nursery during the day and legitimately bought a couple of wolfsbane plants which were now growing on his sill. It was a small insurance no one would come through his window. Or at least it would make them hesitate a bit.

He harvested a few flowers when he purchased it and dried them in a cool oven before pulverizing them into a powder. He wasn’t sure what he’d do with the bulk of it yet. It was just sitting in a small pouch on his desk, mixed with some mountain ash, ready to be tied onto a beltloop. Some though, he packed into a quik-dissolve gel pill. That the very least if he needed to, he could stuff it down an alpha’s throat and let it wreak havoc on their digestive system.

After a while of scrolling through tumblr, getting no new ideas, Morris loaded the pouch and slipped the blade into a hunting knife holster he’d found in his father’s old outdoors-stuff-and-things trunk. It didn’t really fit, but it stayed secure and that was all that really mattered.

At the honk from outside, Morris leapt down his steps and bolted out the door. He had already written a note saying he was staying at Scott’s for the night in case he wasn’t back before the Sherriff was due home at 5 in the morning. He’d been working so much lately, but Morris was thankful. It kept him out of the way of his business.

He was greeted with Derek’s Camaro oddly. It unnerved him to be honest. Peeved him too. He hadn’t sensed Derek nearby for the entire weekend, but it was weird to see him catering to Stiles again. He was being attentive and that was freaky. Hadn’t he successfully pushed him away?

“I’m gonna drive myself. I don’t need you to take me.” It was stupid. The less cars they had rumbling up to the edge of the Preserve, the better. But really, he just didn’t want to be stuck in another awkward car ride with the werewolf.

“Just get in Stiles.” He groaned at his inability to counter Derek opened up the door to slip into the seat as Derek rolled the window back up.

“Fine, but don’t talk to me. You’re so fucking annoying.”

Derek smiled. He actually smiled. Morris was freaking out internally. Why was Derek smiling? Hadn’t he just insulted him directly? Derek didn’t take insults. Even a shady glance would earn you a growl and poopy look. Derek was the King of poopy looks.

They drove to the starting point Stiles had described to Lydia where they were supposed to rendezvous with the others.

Stiles quickly slithered out of the car and stalked toward the others.

“Kay. Let’s get this show on the road!” Stiles proclaimed, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. They all turned ad trudged through the forest, following Stiles. As he ventured, wandered really since he was just trying to pick up a trail any of the werewolves might have left behind, he stepped over a line of wolfsbane. It was too late as his foot connected with the leaves and twigs that covered the forest floor. A spiral of red fluorescence lit up ahead of them as a line shot from the center straight out into the woods somewhere.

“Shit!” cursed Morris as whooping howls rent the air. Kali had been clever enough to curse the ground around these parts in case he came back. Before too long, before they could strategize much beyond Scott’s clever “Split up!” three shifted werewolves burst into the foray from different directions. One of them – Kali actually- had come from the canopy above, leaping down in front of Scott. A spike of fear shot through all of them, but it was quickly eliminated by the fury of battle and surprise.

Morris had unclipped the knife from its holster and loosened the cinch on pouch of powder he had at his side. Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles saw a flash of red – one of the alphas- coming toward him. He threw out the powder with one hand, willing it to fly in a sparkling stream to the alpha’s nostrils. He barked wildly, stopping suddenly and tossing his muzzle back and forth, sneezing and trying desperately to get rid of the poison. He was starting to bleed from his snout, the mountain ash and the wolfsbane dissolving the flesh in side of his nasal passages and his throat. He turned suddenly, angered and determined to flay Stiles alive with his claws and brilliant teeth. However, in the time he was shaking, he had missed Morris running by his side, stabbing the point of the knife into his flank behind the should blade and with a twist, running the vicious metal across his whole side. His determination faded with a crying yelp as he twisted into a heap of spasms. His tongue stretched out to the side, lolling helplessly as his eyes blinked a few times and rolled up to reveal black undersides. Not black like he was a demon, but as if the powder had started to consume him relentlessly. He was bleeding tar profusely. He was as good as dead.

Stiles left it to die, turning toward the rest of the fray. Everyone was consumed in battle, though he lost track of Jackson and the other male Alpha. Just as he was going to throw his knife across the clearing into Kali’s spine, as she was only shifted in her beta form, the clack of claws on bones exploded in his ears. Claws on _his_ ribs that is. The pain was bright and numb. Funny that such incredible destruction would breed a lack of feeling. The swipe had come up from his waist, through the pouch on his right side up to his armpit and he fell feebly to the ground. Leaves crunched beneath him, some sticking already to his tattered skin. Morris could power through it, healing even, but the process would ensure that Stiles would die as soon as he left the body. Demonic healing was a lie, like anything else, just a façade and an illusion.

Morris concentrated on keeping his healing under control to protect the terms of the deal – and Stiles- but quickly he was losing consciousness, weakened and unable to keep everything together. Something had to give and the deal made sure it was his wakened state. Struggling to keep his eyes open, he saw Jackson bolt from behind a tree to attack the alpha from behind as it prepared to snap Stiles’ neck. Morris saw the alpha take notice of the attack though and try to turn. With an outstretched hand, Morris pushed the wolf backwards and onto its hind legs. It whimpered in fearfully shocked amazement as it lost control of its own limbs, only to have Jackson’s claws enter its back at the neck and tear through its back. Jackson came away with blood and fur covered hands as he lifted one clawed hand back up and decapitated the wolf while ripping through the vital organs from the front with his other hand.

Nothing would heal from that.

In the next instant he heard Kali’s scream and saw derek’s human features before him, scared and concerned, whispering something. The words sounded distant and nonsensical. He never heard the death moan of the other alpha, but there was little it could have done to save itself.

Then together, Morris and Stiles retired to the bliss that was unconsciousness.

For the first time in hundreds of years, Morris dreamt. There was blood and there was terror, but in all of it there stood Stiles and Derek with black and red wings. Black wings covered in blood, dripping onto the clouds around heaven as they opened the gates for Morris to step through.

“It was enough,” Stiles said, “to love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! i'm sorry I didn't get two chapters out last week! I had a very drama-filled day on Sunday and it was just not something I could manage to do. Hopefully this weekend will not be like that. I should be able to get out another chapter! :D Anyway, this is the conclusion of arc 1 of this story! WHOOOOO!!!! So yay! all fun and games! As always, you can find me on Tumblr as [Foolproofpoem.](http://foolproofpoem.tumblr.com) Leave a comment! I really enjoy hearing from you guys and hearing what you liked/didn't like! I always reply!


	8. Chapter 8

Morris and Stiles wake up again briefly to notice they’d been moved to a gurney and were rolling through the hospital. Stiles tried to move his arm, moan in pain, wiggle his fingers, and he managed all of them with great surprise.

_I have to let the wound heal naturally so the contract isn’t void._

_Does that mean you’re weaker?_

_For the time being. It’s uncomfortable. Try not to make it too obvious that you’re possessed._

_It hurts so much._

_No shit, Stiles, your whole side is ripped up and you have a couple of cracked ribs. I’m only just keeping the blood in you. You’d be soup if I weren’t here._

_Thanks, I guess._

_You guess._

Stiles could only see the bright foggy lights and feel his throat vibrate with his moans. So much pain. Was he crying? Slowly, tendrils of sound started to wiggle their way into Stiles’ consciousness.

“Stiles!” His head jerked violently and he caught Derek’s eyes with his – red and puffy. Not red like an angry alpha, just worried and watery. His neck was screaming at him and he grabbed his thigh in pain as his side throbbed so painfully that he fell back into darkness.

\---

The fields again. Soft countryside and plain houses. Clapboards on the windows to shut out the hot sun and the moonlight at night. There were birds tittering in the branches of a large crabapple tree above. Spring. The fluffy fuchsia blooms were open and full. It seemed like the birds were playing tag in their lofts, high and distant from the ground below them.

Their laughs mocked him. His body was not his own. For weeks, Morris was only an empty case, a puppet, a glove on the hand that moved him. The demon had offered no name. He called Morris “Sweetie” and “Boy” and “Faggot.” By now, Morris wouldn’t have responded to his own name even if it was his mother calling to him for supper.

Not that he had many suppers to go to nowadays. The demon inside him pushed everyone away from him, turned cruel inside and grated his soul against Morris’ so that every movement felt like rasps against his skin, even though he couldn’t actually feel his skin. At night, the demon sent images of death and destruction and blood into his consciousness. Each moment was filled with small children eating their parents, little five year-old fingers clawing away skin to get to juicy flesh underneath. Cannibals and monsters, their ears stretched to points and their faces wrinkled, contorted into nasty ridges. They were some kind of horror with no name, but they began as human.

Morris couldn’t shut his eyes to it – to each squelch of an eyeball between dull molars, each living scream as the babe they birthed began to tunnel back through their abdomen with an intent to consume their bodies. It was disgusting and horrible. What sort of evil in this world possessed him? Even if the demon were to be exorcised, would his mind be the same?

With each day growing crueler and gaunter in its prospects, it was no wonder the town started to take notice of the Morris kid. He was almost a man, not able to enlist, no, but still able to support the men that would be leaving.

Henry was leaving.

Henry was everything wonderful that was in Morris’ world. Even as the demon shrouded his world in agony, Henry was a luminary. It was his eyes – blue, bright, cleverly dancing everywhere. He wasn’t the type to play about, but everything he did was with a carefree ease. Labor was nothing in his company and resting under the shade of the oaks with him was the most pleasure Morris had ever had.

The birds were laughing at him surely.

There were days when Henry’s eyes glanced over at Morris and they lingered for the briefest moment. Like a breath – quivering, excited, nervous. Morris’ chest always stopped for an instant. It was the hope that was feeding him. What did Henry think of him? Did Henry lie awake at night ask himself what Morris was doing at that moment? Did Henry want to kiss him like Morris did?

It happened then one day. Henry was alone and the demon thought it time to play with his heart.

_But his eyes! Don’t you love their quaint twinkle?!_

_They do not twinkle. And I don’t like his eyes._

_Oh Morris, you DO love lying to yourself, don’t you?_

_Please stop this._

_No, no. Morris, this is my playtime, Henry my plaything, and you my precious audience._

The demon sauntered Morris’ body over to Henry, secluded in the hay barn. Henry was there, pitching the loose straw into piles to be baled later on. His sweat glinted in the streaks of light that came from the gaps in the wooden slats that made the walls. His face was flushed, his beard trimmed neatly despite his labored appearance. Taut muscles contracted when he lifted the fork with piles of hay. His shirt was dirtied and unbuttoned, his trousers and suspenders loosened.

To say that any woman – or even man – would be flustered in Henry’s presence would be stating the obvious. The demon snuck behind Henry, giggling tritely, making the whole thing a joke as he launched at Henry from behind, wrapping his arms around Henry’s middle and flinging them both together into the haystack to the side.

Henry laughed. The birds laughed. Morris laughed. To outsiders, it was just friends rollicking and fooling around. Morris knew better. This was the final barrier Morris had before he broke completely. It had been months since he was possessed. The deal was kept: no one had been enlisted. The King’s man simply stayed over in the town and left on. The town was relieved, and then they saw how Morris acted and became suspicious of him.

“Coop! What a change! Yesterday you were all doom and gloom!”

“Still am!” the demon chirped, “Just feeling better today. Being with you!”

“With me? I’m worried about you, but I’m glad you’re feeling better.” Morris’ arms were still tight around Henry who hadn’t made any effort to change position. The demon shifted Morris’ body around so that Henry was beneath him, his head between Morris’ hands on the haystack, his waist straddled by Morris’ thighs.

“Yes, you,” Morris’ right hand moved to cup Henry’s cheek, the pad of his thumb stroking against his beard there. Henry’s eyes changed – darker and more intense, unquestioning, “Henry…”

And then suddenly Henry’s lips were on Morris’, crashing violently into him. The hand that had been on his cheek was now sliding onto his chest, gripping the muscles underneath savagely, hungrily. The demon could almost taste the meat of him there.

_Please, stop!_

Manic laughter in his head. No mercy, no stopping.

As Henry’s beard scratched against Morris’ mouth, hungrily devouring each other’s tongues, Morris’ hand crept further down until he cupped Henry’s growing erection.

_My, this boy is stiff! He DOES want to fuck you, doesn’t he? You were right about this one, Sweetie._

_Please! Stop it! This isn’t right!_

“I want you to fuck me, Henry. I want this,” he squeezed, “inside of me. I need you in me.”

“Coop! Yes!” Henry growled out the last word, flipping them over and unclasping his waistband and drawing out his cock, before the demon swatted his hand away to get a grasp on the hot flesh. Henry groaned and Morris cried.

_No! Don’t do this! Stop it! Please!_

Morris’ hands flew to his own trousers, yanking them down to his knees before Henry pulled them off completely, and settled his cock on Morris’ ass, rubbing against him, just rutting and moaning. The demon was laughing in his head.

_What a little faggot! Just like yourself, Sweetie!_

_Stop it! For the love of God, please stop!_

_God doesn’t listen to faggots, Morris._

The demon flipped them again, so that Henry was on his back, and Morris was pantsless, grinding himself against Henry beneath wantonly, kneading Henry’s muscled chest, tangling his fingers in the light curls of chest hair.

Suddenly there was a dull thud, like someone falling over and Morris’ and Henry’s heads whipped to the doors of the barn. There, standing with eyes wide was Henry’s fiancé, Maria. Her basket of radishes had fallen from her hands and rolled in every direction, the same as the thoughts that now rolled across Henry’s eyes.

They settled on outrage.

“Get off of me, Demon!” Henry clasped his pants as feigned struggling to get out from under Morris, tucking his hard cock back into his hands, before reaching up and throwing Morris off of him. “Maria, fetch the Reverend! Cooper is possessed!”

_Oh God!_

_God doesn’t listen to faggots, Morris_.

“Maria, Maria! MARIA!” Morris sang, stripping off his shirt, so that he was completely naked. “Join us if you want to, Maria!” Transfixed, she could only stare in horror as the demon revealed himself so expertly to Henry and Maria. “Fuck me once Henry! Fuck me twice Maria! FUCK JESUS TOO!”

_STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?_

_Playing into their expectations of demons, Morris. I told you I’d rip off your skin one day._

_But I have ten years!_

_Now, who said that? You’re going to burn, Cooper Morris._

The birds were certainly laughing at him now. That’s how it happened. It wasn’t long before the reverend tried to exorcise him and failed, always mispronouncing one line. Now, as a spring zephyr rattled down crabapple blossoms from the trees and fluffy clouds ambled by on their azure carpet sky, Morris, silent, was tied to mast, with logs and kindling piled around him. The demon wouldn’t let him cry or speak. As soon as the exorcism was deemed a failure, the Demon kept silent.

No one doubted dear Henry, and he was filled with righteous anger for the demon inside Morris seducing him. He stood under an awning now, to the side, just within Morris’ periphery, stoic, arms crossed. Henry’s eyes weren’t shining.

The reverend said some last prayers and gestured for a few of the council elders to throw lit bundles of sticks onto the pyre. At first there wasn’t much of anything, but a creeping sensation of more heat, but then it grew exponentially. The flames grew higher, they stretched and they danced and the licked at his skin, which blistered and popped. The smell of his own burning skin amidst the smoke was nauseating and heady, filled with absolute annihilation. An explosion in his gut – the demon roared out of his mouth, shrouded by the black smoke of the pyre. Morris was free, finally! How cruel that his final moments spent on earth would be burning, when he would spend eternity in Hell, burning there forever.

The demon-smoke, arched down from above the flames and shot through the crowd, who recoiled and screamed. Some women fainted. Some men too. The dogs yapped at it, but then ran away. The heat was unbearable now, the smoke almost completely filling his lungs. Breathing was impossible and he began to suffocate. Suddenly, Morris felt vibrations underneath him and heard squealing and whining from the edge of town.

All of the pigs, with shining beetle-black eyes came stampeding through the street to the square, trampling children and adults alike in their course to the inferno with Morris at the center. They leapt onto the pyre and rolled in the flames, not to put themselves out, but to burn with Morris. The town was screaming with madness. No one could do anything for the pigs that squealed and grunted with manic glee.

One hog seemed to be unburnt, stepping up above the rest to Morris.

“I told you I’d come for your skin and bones.” Was Morris hallucinating?

No. The hog reached out with a ferocious maw and gripped Morris’ exposed, blistered skin. It pulled off like the flaky layers of his mother’s biscuits.

Morris died screaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I know i disappeared for AGES. I have all the excuses in the book, but it was basically just a combo of school, work, and spring break volunteering in TN. I DIDN'T EVEN GO ON TUMBLR GUYS. anyway, this is a short chapter, but I should be updating on Friday. this was a toughie to write. haha. (also sorry i'm so mean to these characters! I'm a nice person, really!)


	9. Chapter 9

Morris opened his eyes to darkness. Electric blue-white light streamed through the gaps in the blinds and lit of lines across his lap in the hospital bed. He pressed a hand to his side, feeling the wound tenderly. Though he couldn’t just heal the gash immediately because Stiles’ body would never heal, he could help accelerate the natural process. Of course, doing that caused him to sleep for so long – dreaming.

He wanted to forget.

Sometimes, when Stiles was quiet and not listening to him think, he heard the squeals of those pigs, the betrayal of his town, his screams. He dreamed of angels. It had taken centuries to accomplish this – to crawl out of hell and still be able to be a coherent demon. So many others transfigured themselves into monsters in order to dig their way up, clawing at the dirt, eating the bones of the dead in their course, screaming their own laments. It had been some kind of miracle that Morris had been able to cheat himself up the layers of hell. He was a lackey, clever enough to betray a higher up when they were about to be exorcised or killed, obedient enough to remain under the cover, ambitious to climb up, up, up. How had he done it for so long? Well, no matter, he’d done it at last: surmounted everything and ascended to earth, to the land of the living to deal the deals and dole out sins. All in the name of Satan, but also for something else.

For himself. He’d been cheated once before, by love, by demons, by the angels he prayed to to protect him. Where was his guardian when he kissed the dead? But he’d save one soul. One soul would be left pure even with him inside of it. He needed consent.

And Stiles gave it to him.

Out of the side of his eye, there was the breath of movement. He turned his head toward the body, moaning as the stretch of his skin burned and tore at his nerves. Slumped in the hospital visitors chair was Derek. He puffy red eyes, dried tear tracks that that lightened his skin, the miniscule crystals of salt glistening barely in the light that fell on his cheeks. His head was cramped to one side, and his arms were crossed over his waist. He looked like shit.

At Morris’ moan though, Derek woke up instantly, blinking away the crust from his eyes and shaking himself into rigidity, ready for whatever was going on. Apparently anything meant worrying over Morris, because Derek was suddenly hovering there with his hands wanting to touch him, but knowing they’d only cause pain.

“Stiles, Stiles!” he said excitedly.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can hear you. No need to shout man, just almost died here. How long was I out?”

“Two weeks. We thought you’d stay down for another week at least. You lost so much blood.” Morris rolled his eyes. Amateurs.

“I am a professional. Ok, you’ve seen me. You can go now.” It took all of Morris’ willpower to roll over without whimpering, but soon he was facing the other side of the room and waiting with clenched eyes until Derek left. The door opened and the door closed, but suddenly he felt a hand on his chin and one on the wound as a calming sensation filled him with warmth.

Morris’ eyes shot open to see a grimace on Derek’s face. The veins in his arms swelled the black of pain and Derek’s thumb swept over Morris’ cheek softly. Someone gasped and then Derek’s chin was pressed to Morris’ head for the briefest moment before Derek was swiftly out of the room and the door was closing with a click that reverberated in Morris skull for the rest of the night.

\---

**_ Utah Gazette _ **

_BIGFOOT SIGHTING: HIGH-DEF PHOTOGRAPHS BAFFLE ZOOLOGISTS_

_“Maybe not a legend after all,” asserts Dr. Timothy Langerfeld, top ecologist and zoologist of Utah State’s…_

\---

“I think he hates me.”

“I think he’s protecting himself and trying to protect you. That’s what Stiles always does.”

Derek paced in Lydia’s bedroom. At first their rendezvous had been because of Derek’s inability to cope with Stiles being in a medical coma. Now it was because only Lydia knew about Derek’s newfound feelings for Stiles. At this very moment, it was because with the amount of times Lydia has seen _The Notebook_ , she was about as close as a love guru as Derek could get.

“Just tell me how I can get him to talk to me!” he growled, finally slumping into Lydia’s pile of oversized plush animals.

“Well why don’t you tell me how you’d… I dunno, woo him,” she said with an airy twirl of her emery board without a glance to the exasperated werewolf. Derek picked up Mr. Snuffles (his favorite, but dare anyone to mention it), and started to pick at the pills of lint on his plush. He sighed, settling Mr. Snuffles in his lap as he looked at the Cheshire moon outside. What was romance? Especially when it was between an underage teenager and a werewolf? Who’d fall for that gimmick of a love story?

Derek obviously. “I don’t know… read him poetry? What are some good love poems? Shakespeare?”

Lydia actually took the time to glare at him this round. “Are you serious? Do you want him to laugh at you or kiss you? Because it’s not gonna be both. And for the record, all Shakespeare wrote about were penises. Well I guess that would be fitting…” she mused, tapping the emery board to her chin, gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling. “You know, Derek, I might just stick with the dinner date thing, or movies. Stay safe and see how he responds. Don’t play with him.”

Derek nodded, seemingly taking notes in his head. “Ok. Thanks.” He got up from the pile of stuffed animals and placed Mr. Snuffles at the top, where he could rule his subjects with his plush fist.

As he slipped a leg out of the window, Lydia spoke: “And for god’s sake, try dressing outside of the bad boy wardrobe. Look at a tie for once in your life.”

Lydia was still Lydia.

\---

**_ Corpus Christi Times _ **

_CHAIN OF ANIMAL MAULINGS HEADS EASTERLY_

_“A frightening trend of animal attacks have been noted by authorities across Texas. The attacks seem to be moving in a straight line toward…”_

\---

No one really came to visit Stiles in the hospital. It was the first week of February he found out. It was four and a half months since he made the deal with Morris. At this point, Stiles didn’t know how he felt about the whole thing. It was good. It was bad. It was sort of all of the things at once. Morris _had_ helped him get rid of the alpha pack at no real harm to Derek and Scott’s packs. But at the same time, those packs had abandoned him.

Except Derek. No, Derek was being weirdly attached to his bed the entire time. It was February 4th. Ten days until Valentine’s day. Stiles was always alone. It was the one day he didn’t fawn over Lydia. Now it was the one day he desperately wanted to fawn over Derek and couldn’t. Morris was keeping a tight hold of that sort of emotion. He’d worked so hard to get rid of it at the beginning, why let it crop up again?

And he was right. Better that Derek and the rest of them stay away from him while a demon was occupying his body than have them accidentally out him or became too attached to this persona. Morris was still dangerous. He was still a demon and at the core, untrustworthy.

Yes, Stiles had seen the memories flashing into his consciousness as Morris slept, seen his story overlaid with Morris’. He’d seen himself as an angel, bloody and pained, barring filth from heaven, but welcoming Morris. He’d seen the workings of a demon’s mind – the inexplicable self-torture that sustained their cruel desire for the infliction of pain across the world. He’d seen the good and the bad and been left feeling ugly. Who was Stiles to see those most private parts of Morris? He might have been able to see them had he asked, but they were instead exposed to him by weakness. Morris had no say in any of that.

At least Stiles gave Morris consent to take his body. Speaking of which, this shirt wasn’t his? This Henley was way too baggy and smelt like leather and spicy cologne. It smelled like Derek.

\---

**_ Louisiana Mirror _ **

_LOCAL DEER POPULATION DWINDLES, RURAL FAMILIES WORRY ABOUT REMAINING WINTER_

_“While most of us buy meat at the supermarket, many families in rural parishes depend on hunting for their food. Reports have come in over-hunting and accusations of hording…”_

\---

The Sherriff had of course been in to see him, grilled him, insinuated that it was Derek’s fault plenty of times and then cried, while yelling about him being careful. It was an animal attack of course. Didn’t you watch the news? They were happening all the time around the country.

The Sherriff had too much work to do though. He’d spent what little vacation he had at the beginning when Stiles was asleep. Now that he seemed to be on the mend though, he had to go back to work. In his place, though without his knowledge, Derek settled into a habit of occupying Stiles’ hospital chair. It was guaranteed to be uncomfortable but Derek never showed any signs of caring about that.

He passed the time reading different books – some supernatural, some not, some new, some old. He tried to play cards with Morris once or twice, but quit when Morris used a bit of demonic trickery and won every game. He played solitaire instead. They silently browsed tumblr and refused to follow each other even if Morris kept checking Derek’s URL to see if he EVER reblogged anything. He didn’t.

Also, tomorrow was Valentine’s day.

\---

**_ The Daily Virginian _ **

_MIGRATION OF LOCAL ANIMALS WREAKS HAVOC IN SUBURBS_

_“For the Johnson family, living in Shady Oaks Villages was always a matter of comfort. Recently though, their lawn has become home to herds of deer and…”_

\---

You’d think that after years of expectation and disappointment, Stiles would expect that nothing would happen on the 14th. He just showed up like usual, no words exchanged for the most part. Morris hadn’t facilitated any conversation at all.

It was a weird experience, falling in love all over again with Derek, but through the filter that was Morris. It made everything so difficult, so easy to over-analyze. He had the strange position of being both the third-person perspective and also the addressee. Every time Derek looked at Morris, it was as if Derek was looking at both of them. He didn’t know what to expect from Derek, except that either he’d do something with all of the tangled strings of affections he’d wrapped Morris in – the extra time spent in his room, the shared clothes, the closeness of their bodies that night, but instead he’d just left them all untied and Stiles was tripping over them.

Now it was February 15th and nothing had happened. They were playing card and Morris was cheating again. It was the usual.

\---

**_ The Boston Chronicler _ **

_MISSING PERSONS COUNT CONTINUES TO RISE_

_“Over the past weeks, officials have noticed a dramatic increase in missing persons reports being filed to the police department. Countless amber alerts have…”_

\---

“Get out.” Derek turned to Stiles. He had been writing in his journal in the chair as Stiles napped. Or at least Derek thought he was napping. He could hear his heartbeat now though. It was beating like a hummingbird, frantic and hard.

“What? Ok. I mean, did you need me to get you something while I’m out?”

“No!” Morris screamed, fed up finally with Derek’s antics. He grabbed the nearest vase of flowers and lobbed it Derek, who dodged it as easily as if someone had tried to throw a feather at him. Stiles had been moaning for days about how Derek didn’t love him and Morris was fed up with it all. He didn’t need the drama going on in his head.

And if Morris was honest with himself, it was also because he had been hoping Derek would confess. That for the briefest moment, Derek would become Henry. That someone in this godforsaken universe would love him too.

Morris and Stiles were together and they were lost.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have had Born Whole by Doe Paoro on repeat for hourssssssss. Anyway, expect these sort of random updates. I took on an extra class and an extra job so I have very little time for writing :( I won't abandon you though!!!! Plus I love these boys too much! Also **PSA: I AM DOING THE AO3 AUCTION!** Check me out! I'm offering two fics to the top two bidders and I'm super cheap right now! So yeah, suppport AO3 and the OTW and get fic from me!!! [I'M RIGHT HERE](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/ladylazarus)


	10. Chapter 10

**_The Mainer_ **

_GRAVEROBBER CONTINUES MORBID DESECRATION_

_“More reports of exhumations and bodily desecrations fill the inboxes of several Sherriff’s offices around…”_

\---

Stiles was released from the hospital a week later. His wound seemed to close up pretty well and the pain had dulled immensely. Morris had aided in the healing process, but not enough that when he left Stiles’ body, the wound reappear again. If he left soon there’d be a considerable amount of pain, but nothing that would kill Stiles. Derek continued to hover around him though. It was beginning to feel suffocating. No amount of angry vase-throwing had deterred the werewolf.

Tonight however, Derek wasn’t there. He’d been strangely absent today. If Morris was being honest, he was starting to miss the (silent) brooding presence around him. In fact, it was getting difficult to sleep without the scratch of Derek’s pen on the rough pages of his journal and the slide of his calloused fingers as he turned the pages, which flapped like wings as they fell over on another.

He was beginning to think he’d peruse tumblr again or check out that online gaming community so he could battle some mythical creatures. As he rolled around in his covers and fidgeted with the bandage under his pyjama shirt, Derek appeared in his window, lifting up the pane, but not stepping in. Stiles turned to the sound to meet Derek’s eyes – soft, but flitting around the room as if he were nervous.

“What are you doing here?” questioned Stiles. Derek looked like he was expecting the question.

“I know you think I’ve been hovering, but I thought you’d be having trouble getting to sleep first night back in your bed. I… did. When I moved back here. I thought I might just read to you.” Derek shifted on the sill tweaking his zipper between his fingers anxiously. As Stiles rolled over to look at him better, Derek pulled out a small journal – a different one from the dark red one he had before. This one was green and worn around the edges, more so even than the first journal. Was it Derek’s old one? Before he filled it up and moved to this one? Derek turned it over in his hands, looking at the back where it was black, like it’d been burned.

Like he dug it out of the ashes of his home. Stiles wanted nothing more than to comfort Derek, and Morris wanted nothing more than to forget the connection he just made.

“Read to me? Really? I’m not five, Derek.” Morris glared at Derek, wishing he’d had his dad bring one of the flower vases home so he could throw it at the stupid alpha. Derek just sat there on the sill, looking at the journal. He looked up at Morris and climbed into the room and sat down by the head of the bed, his back against the mattress. His head was right next to Morris’ shoulder. He could move his hand to run through Derek’s hair if he wanted to. He didn’t want to, he told himself.

“I know. But it does help, I think. This book was a wedding present from my parents to each other. It was one of the few things that ended up surviving the fire. They collected poems each of them liked that reminded them of each other and then wrote them onto the pages. I was always jealous of Laura because her handwriting looked like our mom’s. Mine doesn’t look anything like either of theirs. I tried copying it for hours in New York, but I couldn’t do it. It was the ‘g.’ I just couldn’t get my mom’s loop right. See?” He lifted the book up to Morris’ line of sight. The bright moonlight skated across the page and illuminated the script. The loop was thin, but held up the rest of the letter well. It was odd to think that handwriting could say so much about a person. Derek’s mom seemed strong, but so feminine… queenly. Derek pulled the book back down. “Anyway, there’s a lot in here. I might just read a couple to you.”

“Love poems? For me?” Derek stiffened. His fingers hesitated as they flipped through the pages.

“Some of them aren’t about being in love so much as loving someone as a companion. Like being together is so important to them – without them it hurts. Sometimes being with someone hurts just as much. Some of them are about losing love.”

“You sound like an English nerd.” Derek laughed. He actually barked a laugh and turned to give Morris a cheeky smirk.

“I was! I was an English major at NYU. I concentrated in American and British poetry.” Derek turned back away from Morris, looking at his lap and the journal that rested there. “I used to read this to myself every night when I couldn’t sleep.”

“Well, read away then, youthful suitor.” Morris flourished his hand in the air loftily. He let his hands collapse heavily onto the bed. If his arm seemed closer to Derek, it was only a design of gravity.

“I’ll only read a couple. Just my favorites.” He wiggled upright a little more and spread out the page, thumbing the handwriting of the title before he began:

_I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,_

_All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches;_

_Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,_

_And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;_

_But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near--for I knew I could not;_

_And broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined around it a little moss,_

_And brought it away--and I have placed it in sight in my room;_

_It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,_

_(For I believe lately I think of little else than them)_

_Yet it remains to me a curious token--it makes me think of manly love;_

_For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,_

_Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,_

_I know very well I could not._

 

_My life is waiting just beyond the douane_

_Maybe, while I’m waiting for valises_

_To roll out of the rain. This story teases_

_Unmercifully. I guess it’s in the plan._

_Well, I’m in one piece, both feet on the ground,_

_Intestines churning with anticipation._

_Who’d wait for me past midnight? Are you patient?_

_The same wet suitcases trolley around._

_I’ve always been stoic toward such delays_

_–lunch hour for luggage handlers, one’s bag last_

_Inevitably. I’ve put off for days_

_Waiting to wait. I want to get out fast_

_And find you out there, if out there you are,_

_Star of my long night, with a rented car._

_The art of losing isn't hard to master;_ __  
so many things seem filled with the intent  
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,  
  
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster  
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.  
The art of losing isn't hard to master.  
  
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:  
places, and names, and where it was you meant  
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.  
  
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or  
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.  
The art of losing isn't hard to master.  
  
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,  
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.  
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.  
  
\- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture  
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident  
the art of losing's not too hard to master  
though it may look like (Write it!) like a disaster. 

 

Much as Morris was loathe to admit it, he was sincerely touched at the gesture Derek was making to him. He might call poetry outdated, even for an old demon like himself, but that didn’t make any of these poems less thoughtful and less amazing. Derek closed the journal and hummed to himself a little. No tune – just a single note, like a contented sigh but more musical even in its solitary tone. Morris moved his hand to the nape of Derek’s neck, stroking his thumb along the hairline, feeling the short, soft, bristly hair.

They were silent for several minutes. Morris was starting to get tired despite himself. He didn’t feel uncomfortable anymore in the sheets and Stiles was quiet. While they were calmed, Morris felt an acute sadness. Derek was doing what Morris had always wanted from Henry. Morris had tried so hard to get Derek to leave, to protect Stiles from the same sort of torture he’d gone through himself with the other demon. Poor Stiles was going to wake up one day, in control of his own body and he wouldn’t know how to touch Derek, how to walk with him, how to hold his hand if Morris allowed this to go further. If Morris took Derek’s place, where would Stiles be?

Even for a demon, Morris had to admit it was unfair. Even now, he could feel the presence of Stiles, swooning over Derek’s gestures, delighting in the attention Morris was giving Derek. The whole thing was a trap and there was no way out but to concede to Derek’s pursuit.

“Thank you Derek.” Morris said, breaking the silence first. He pulled his hand away and closed his eyes against the werewolf’s olive skin sliding underneath the leather jacket. He could hear Derek shifting, trying not to bump the bed as he stood to leave. There was a pause and then the covers were being pulled up to cover him more and a puff of warmth against the shell of his ear.

“Goodnight, Stiles. Sweet dreams.” Sweet dreams? Not now, Derek! Anguish overtook Morris as he troubled himself with the treacherous course his life in Stiles’ body had taken. The rough slip of the windowpane and the soft slump as it hit the sill signaled Derek’s departure. He was so torn now, between the beginnings of love for Derek and the beginnings of resentment. They grew in two vines from a single seed, it seemed.

\---

The week was filled during the day with begrudgingly catching up on schoolwork Morris had missed. Lydia was bringing him all the necessary textbooks and handouts and he had to make up almost a month’s worth of work before he got back to school next week. Derek showed up most nights, though he missed the full moon of course. Sometimes he’d read a poem form the journal or he’d simply rest next to Stiles’ bed. He seemed content to just exist in Morris’ space. It drove both Stiles and him nuts. They both wanted Derek to _do_ something – anything really.

Lydia was dropping off the latest haul of schoolwork and picking up what he’d finished that day. The Sherriff was very grateful Lydia had taken on this enterprise, but seemed worried when it wasn’t Scott doing these chores.

“So, how’s Derek doing?” Lydia picked at some post-it note tabs Morris had stuck on the edges of his American History text, marking all the important passages about the Civil War, despite his immense knowledge of how that war _really_ went down. God, he can still remember what a bunch of pricks the Southern demons were. He looked up to the strawberry-blonde and piqued an eyebrow.

“What do you mean?” He turned back to his calculus.

“Oh don’t play coy with me Stiles. He’s been over like, every night. Are you guys making out yet or what?” Morris jerked back in his chair almost hard enough to tip himself over, grabbing the edge of the kitchen table at the last moment to steady himself.

“What?! No! He’s just hanging out! Sometimes he reads poetry to me?” She sighed and rolled her eyes, supremely underwhelmed with the news.

“Oh _God_. I _told_ him that poetry was stupid. He’s so backwards with this whole flirting thing. I swear the next thing he’s gonna want to do is a picnic on your roof with a bottle of rosé. He just needs to man up and ask you out on a proper date. You know what, I need to give him a makeover too. I am _SO_ sick of seeing the same clothes over and over again!” She was pacing the room now, books abandoned on the corner of the table. She was tossing her hands around in the air, her bracelets clinking against each other, mirroring her angst, “You know, if he can afford to drive that gas-guzzling Camaro everywhere, he can damn well afford a new wardrobe! God and he needs to quite with the renaissance love drama! He is SUCH a poor pick, Stiles. I liked it better when you were always hanging off of me.”

“Are you done now? One, I like the poetry. It makes it easier to go to sleep – no, stop that, not because it’s boring – it’s nice. Really. Two, yeah he needs to change up his style a bit, but I don’t think he’s going to take well to you telling him what to do. He just does what he wants, you know? Three, I need help with this differential.” Morris hoped he’d saved Derek from the gauntlet that was a shopping trip with Lydia, but he really doubted it.

_Morris…_

_I know, Stiles._

“…And Lydia?”

“Yeah?” she prompted, engrossed in the Stiles’ chicken-scratch handwriting that was his formula.

“Can you tell Scott that I miss him?”

“I’ll tell him, but I think that’s something you need to fix.” She gave him a pointed look and Morris had to turn away, back to the pencil and graph paper before him. Suddenly math looked much easier than before.

_Thanks, Morris._

_Shut up, Stiles._

\---

**_The Toronto Voyager_ **

_ANIMAL ATTACKS WREAK METRO TORONTO_

_“Gruesome animal attacks abound, baffling Fish and Wildlife officials. Half mauled, beheaded corpses litter…”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I made this a tiny bit longer to account for the poems' length. I didn't want to cheat you out of the story!!! Also, yes, I'm a HUGE poetry nerd. I actually write some and put up on my tumblr if you're curious (under the 'creative' link on the sidebar). In order, the poems are "I saw in Louisiana a Live Oak growing" by Walt Whitman (from his calamus poems), "Dark Night of the 747 IV" by Marilyn Hacker, and "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop. Oddly, and without meaning to, all of these poems are about same-sex relationships. WHAT HAPPY PROVIDENCE. Also I may be taking a small break from this story to write up commissions from the AO3 auction. I'll still be writing Just maybe not on Inside-Out. So go check those out when I put them up!


	11. Chapter 11

This wasn’t Scott’s house.

It was supposed to be. Morris was supposed to go over to Scott’s and sleep over, though neither Scott knew he was expecting a guest nor did the Sherriff know that Scott had no plans with Scott that night.

This wasn’t Scott’s house. This was _release._

This was a club. Probably not a safe one either. It was too dark and there were too many questionable men in faux leather jackets wearing sun glasses even though it was 11 at night. The bouncer looked like he actually had to do his job frequently. Morris reveled in it. The thump of the bassline and flash of the lights inside signaled relief from the weeks he’d had to endure in Derek and the pack’s safekeeping.

Just the other day when he’d had to do homework with Lydia, he’d felt so trapped. He defended Derek when all he was supposed to do was ignore him. It wasn’t part of the deal. It was so NOT part of the deal it was the opposite of the deal because Morris had promised to keep everyone safe and that meant getting rid of all of Stiles’ friends. Somehow Lydia survived. Derek was too stubborn. Scott… Morris bent.

Stiles was getting to him.

But not tonight. Tonight Morris was going to get wasted, end up in some other guy’s bed, and maybe he’d kill someone for fun. Whatever it was, it wasn’t listening to poetry and sleeping soundly and wasting the night away day dreaming (night day dreaming?) about a guy with nice stubble in a _real_ leather jacket.

He was in line for one of the sketchiest clubs in Beacon Hills and just fucking happy for once that he wasn’t being hounded about his safety or werewolf drama.

The bouncer stopped him. Morris looked up, smiled at the man, shifted his eyes, forcefully peeled the man’s hand off his chest and walked right in. The bouncer didn’t even attempt to stop him and forgot to check the next four people’s IDs.

_Being a demon certainly has its benefits._

_If only you knew Stiles._

If only he knew how much it hurt. Why did Stiles think demons worked so hard to climb out of Hell? It wasn’t so they could get a good tan. Morris bumped into too many people on his way to the bar. The place was packed, bodies grinding against each other. Tall men hunched over women they’d seduced and others writhed against each other like eels in a shallow dish.

Morris needed alcohol.

He sidled up to the bar and draped an arm on the wood, waiting until the bartender saw him. As he bumped into people, he’d snagged a few wallets. He plucked out all of the bills and dropped the wallets on the ground and kicked them away back into the dancing crowd. Turns out they were going to have a terrible weekend.

“Two double Whiskeys,” Morris ordered once the bartender got close enough. He eyed Stiles, disbelieving his age, but he was in the bar, so the bouncer should have been doing his job. Morris grabbed the drinks and paid, tipping the bartender. If you tip your bartender, they’ll pay more attention to you for sure. Morris was going to need a lot more of that alcoholic attention to start touching humans tonight.

After downing both doubles, Morris ordered another round and swallowed them as well. Eight drinks in and it was time to dance. The beginnings of a buzz was just setting in, but soon he’d be completely drunk, and dancing would get his blood pumping and get the alcohol working faster. Whiskey was a good choice tonight.

There was a blond man dancing with a girl a little off from the center of the throng of people. They were dancing like they were friends so Morris figured he was a safe bet to dance with.  The man was tall, built, toned, fresh looking. A night with him wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world and it was certainly what the doctor was ordering.

Morris sauntered over to him, grabbed him by his V-neck and turned him to face Morris. The man’s face was angry and confused until he gave Stiles a once over and his frown turned into a grin. Morris smoothed his hand out on his chest and slid it down to his waist, his other hand coming to mirror it on the other side of the man’s waist. Morris brought the man closer has he rolled his hips to the beat and crashed his body into the other man’s. He grinned, his hands sliding to his waist and ass, squeezing Stiles and dancing with him, rocking into him, sharing in the heat of the moment and the hungry, lusty mood of the club.

The other guy, his name started with a B or something, Morris forgot immediately, he started to kiss at Stiles’ neck. Morris bent, accepting the ministrations and tasting the pleasure coming off the man’s body as Morris closed his eyes.

Another person came up behind him, hands on his hips and stubble at his neck as well. He smelled familiar – salty, spicy, warm. Morris, eyes closed still, sighed in comfort and moved his hand to cup the neck of the new guy and slide another over his hands. They gyrated together, the three of them, grinding their bodies together, Morris pressed between. The new guy nipped at his neck playfully and Morris felt his cock twitch in his pants. He was already sem-hard from all the dancing, and this new guy was playing him in all the right ways. Morris opened his mouth to breathe, but a moan escaped instead. It wasn’t loud, but the guys he was dancing with probably heard it. The blond one shuddered against him, breath hitching at Morris’ noises.

Then he was gone. Morris opened his eyes to see him being dragged away by his female friend as they both stumbled over themselves. He turned to his friend, angrily brushing her off before the pushed further out of the crowd. She was yelling at him about something. Who knows what was going on. Morris didn’t care. Plus, he had a very attentive man behind him that was snaking his hands over to the front of Morris’ thighs, pressing him flush to the man behind him, who felt particularly defined. He was a solid mass for sure.

Hopefully he didn’t have an ugly face.

Morris closed his eyes against the next nip at his neck and turned to grab the man’s neck and crash his lips into Morris’. _Fuck_ , he thought. This guy was an awesome kisser. His stubble scraped against Morris’ chin and they bit at each other’s lips as their tongues fought over skin and each other and teeth. Morris wouldn’t be able to say he’s had any memorable kisses, but this one might be the first contender for the top spot.

It seemed like forever before they separated. Morris breathed out unevenly before he opened his eyes to see the stud that was kissing him like this.

Derek. That’s who. Morris was completely shocked. He stopped dancing and just stared at Derek. Derek held him close still, not losing his gaze.

“Stiles. You shouldn’t go off alone at night.” Of all the things that could be said, that was it? That was what Derek was opening with? Well, he wasn’t really opening with it. He’d sort of opened with grinding, necking and then a full on tongue-down-throat kiss. Why was Derek kissing him now? He hadn’t really made any moves before now. Yeah, he’d stayed up and read poetry to him and there was the way he always said sweet dreams and pulled the covers up, but nothing that said ‘Hey I wanna fuck you.’

Was that even what he was saying now? His arms had a grip on Morris, but the quirky up-tilt on the corner of his lips definitely said he was proud of the state he was putting Morris in. It was honestly unfair. Morris turned his head to the side. Anonymous bodies were crashing in waves over each other next to him.

Of all the people to be here right now, it had to be Derek. “Why are you even here?”

“I could ask you the same question, Stiles.” They were shouting over the music and the cheers of college kids doing shots. It felt private in the way that no one was paying attention to them and nobody could hear them, but it also felt so public. Morris shifted uncomfortably and shook Derek’s hands off himself, but grabbed his jacket and pulled him to the side of the room toward the couches where it was quieter.

“I needed a break from stuff. I just wanted to get away from everything. And you. Were. Not. Supposed. To. Be. Here. And especially not kissing me! What the fuck man?!” whined Morris, prodding Derek in the chest pointedly.

“I didn’t want anyone else kissing you.”

“Excuse me? That was NOT an answer, and I have no fucking clue how you want me to interpret that!”

“You like me.”

“I barely fucking tolerate you.” Derek looked hurt at first, before he shook himself up and glared at him in the way that said he knew something more than Morris.

“Lydia said you would be thick.” What?

“What the fuck is Lydia talking about?” On the inside, Stiles was preening. Even with everything that Morris was doing, Derek was still chasing after him. Even after trying to eliminate the pack as his friends, Morris was beginning to like them. Stiles was absolutely beside himself. If Stiles had any concerns now about how Derek might be feeling toward Stiles, it was pretty much erased with tonight’s happenings.

_Morris, don’t push him away. Please._

_Stiles, you’re going to hurt him._

_I wouldn’t do that!_

_No, you wouldn’t, but someone is going to hurt him using you. You’re so fucking weak compared to them. You have nothing on werewolves that would paint the forest with your blood._

_I’m NOT weak! I’m-_

_Then why am I here, Stiles, if you’re so strong? The deal was to keep you safe in exchange for your body. I’m not about to break this contract because you have a crush._

_…I’m not weak anymore._

_You’re not strong either._

“Don’t kiss me ever again, Derek.” The joking glare disappeared completely from his face. Derek’s face was slack, his lips parted and his eyes sunken. It was a terrible picture of sadness. “I didn’t ask for this from you. I don’t want you.” His eyes darted from Morris’ lips to his eyes, begging for the twinkle of a lie, as he listened for an errant heartbeat.

Morris, wiped his hands on his jeans, stood up and left the club. He didn’t look back to see if Derek followed. His hands kept sweating, he couldn’t breathe, his legs were locking up, he was puking.

It felt good to empty his stomach honestly. The purge was shocking and he kept sweating, like his body was trying to evacuate itself of every single touch Derek had made to his skin.

_Why am I sweating like this? Why can’t I get a breath in?_

Morris threw a hand out to catch himself as he leant into the brick façade of the alley. His forehead and a knee followed, as he crumpled against the wall completely. His fingers dug into the stone as if it could catch him from falling apart.

_Why does my chest hurt?_

_The same way I hurt? You’re right, Morris, I was weak when I made our deal. But it wasn’t because of the pack and danger. I was weak because I was running away from this feeling. I hurt_ so _much._

Walking home after collecting himself, Morris didn’t even feel the tears, but the grass caught each drop like dew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omggggg guyssss. it's been FOREVER. I AM SO SORRY. I had a combination of writer's block and like... actual schoolwork/work/anxiety. SO. that's why this chapter is so short (thought not SUPER short either). Finals are coming up and then I'll be home for a few days in Florida before coming back and then I should have a tiny bit more spare time than usual, but I'm taking a summer class and have a job so there's that too. BUT! I wanna be done with this fic before school starts. Also I'll have a oneshot/2-3 chapter fic that will pop up sometime maybe before this is done because I have a commission from the AO3 auction I need to do, and I feel awful for taking so long to do that. so here's a super long winded update on my life. if you wanna know more about me, check out my tumblarghhhhh as [Foolproofpoem](http://foolproofpoem.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; I lift my eyes and all is born again." -- My main lady, Sylvia Plath. You can find me on Tumblr as [Foolproofpoem](http://foolproofpoem.tumblr.com/)


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